


I Must Confess (I Still Believe)

by objectlesson



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Catholic School, Coming of Age, F/F, High School, Internalized Homophobia, Los Angeles, Lots of Spice Girls and Britney, Marijuana, Misunderstandings, Pining, Self-Acceptance, Self-Discovery, Self-Doubt, Sing alongs, Slow Burn, Theater Kids, Underage Drinking, Underage Smoking, Useless Lesbians
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-25 22:40:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 44,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18711139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/objectlesson/pseuds/objectlesson
Summary: Louis shrugs, eyes on the road. “You look cute in the blazer, too,” she says nonchalantly, andwhat the fucking fuck,what is Harry supposed to think?“You probably do, too, but I wouldn’t know because I don’t even think you own one? Do you ever actually wear the entire uniform?” she asks, deflecting.“Not since freshman year!” Louis boasts proudly. “They stopped giving me demerits because it’s, like, a lost cause. I literally haven’t seen my blazer in three years, I just borrow Veronica’s when I walk into Mass.” Her grin is very cheeky and bright, and she’s squinting in the sun, aviators pushed up into the overgrown auburn shag of her hair. The horizon is hazy and pink-orange as dark sneaks up on them, the air smelling of sprinkler water and BBQ smoke from people leaching the last warmth of October before summer’s gone for good. Harry feels alive with possibility, eyes watering as she smiles at Louis, unable to stop. She wrinkles her nose like it’ll somehow hide the way it looks on her face to be in love.Or,Harry is the new girl at an all girl Catholic Girl's School, and Louis is the unattainable, dashing senior who changes her forever.





	I Must Confess (I Still Believe)

**Author's Note:**

> Hello friends and readers, 
> 
> This is a very bitter-sweet story for me to post. As many of you know, it will be my last story in the 1D fandom, at least for the foreseeable future. 
> 
> I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who read and enjoyed my work, particularly my girl direction, as it was tremendously healing and wonderful for me to write it and share it with you. Thank you so much, those of you who left a comment or told me how these fics helped them feel better about your sexuality/weight/body hair. You all have been so wonderful and supportive and I’m terribly lucky to have grown with you through writing these stories. 
> 
> I’m deeply saddened by the state of the fandom right now, and disappointed I no longer feel comfortable sharing my writing. I wish things were different, but it’s become imperative for my mental health and enjoyment of fandom spaces and my creativity as a writer that I remove myself from writing in this particular fandom. There has been a concentrated and relentless attack directed at any adult content creator engaging with content which a small but vocal minority have deemed “problematic” or not morally “pure” enough to pass some arbitrary standard they’ve placed. Because I tend to write about teenagers and kink exploration, I’m on the hit list. 
> 
> *TW for mentions of bullying, homophobia, and CSA* 
> 
> My writing has always been a way to deal with the trauma I experienced as an out lesbian at an all girl’s private Catholic School, and as a CSA victim. A way to reconcile the isolation and abuse I experienced, and to write myself a better, sweeter love story than the one I lived through. I was told at fifteen year old, BY ADULTS, that I was fractured, morally impure, filthy, and dangerous, and I was treated as such. It’s taken me a long time to heal from the wounds inflicted upon me in that space, and to combat the way I internalized what people said to me and about me and my sexuality. Writing about teenagers having healthy, mutually supportive, healing, communicative sexual relationships has helped so much with that. This story is particularly personal in that regard, as it draws heavily from my experience. This is the way I wish my teenage love had gone, instead of the way it did. 
> 
> That being said, my stories do not exist in a vacuum. Having the fandom violently echo the same things I was told as a teenager, (that my experiences and existence are impure and dirty and predatory) AND baselessly accuse me of horrific crimes, took a toll on this story. It’s not the version of this I wanted to write, or the one I envisioned from the start. It was struggle, and I ultimately opted to edit out of the sexual content in it, because I felt so triggered by the manner in which my nsfw stories were being twisted into something that they’re not. It feels ironic and fitting that this bastardized and grossly edited version of this fic, steeped with shame and self hatred and trauma response, is my last fic in this fandom. 
> 
> That being said, I really hope this story brings people the same healing my other girl direction fics have in the past.
> 
> Lastly, I implore to those of you remaining in the 1D fandom to be kinder to one another. Consider the fact that content creators are people, with their own histories and pains and insecurities. Making terrible accusations based on those content creator’s art in the name of purity crusades can be extremely harmful and lead to large-scale censorship like that which demolished LJ only a few years ago. Many LGBTQ people experience a collective trauma as young people, where we are denied experiences otherwise considered normal or even celebrated for straight teens. This leads to many LGBTQ artists being fixated on high school or teenage years. The the love we lost, had ripped from us, or never experienced. I do not feel guilty or like I should apologize for that fixation or that pain. I as a queer woman and survivor of abuse and trauma deserve to explore my interiority through my writing. If you don’t want to read it? No one is forcing you. That’s what tags are for. 
> 
> To the rest of you, I’m sorry I won’t be writing here anymore! I will continue to write in other fandoms and also am beginning to write an original wlw novel. I hope you’ll follow/find me there. In the meantime, I hope this fic isn’t a total wreck. Enjoy and bye!
> 
> Huge huge thank you yo my artist Leah, who did an adorable portrait of Harry's school pictures, and the Big Bang Mods for organizing this! 
> 
> Also a huge thank you to Toni my cheerleader and Jen, my amazing beta. I could not have done it without you guys.

CHAPTER 1

Catholic girls’ school is already not at all what Harry expected, and she hasn’t even _gotten_ there yet. 

For one thing, the uniform is nowhere near comfortable, let alone cute or sexy, like she was incorrectly led to believe. The very formative “...Baby One More Time”video had been a _lie,_ and she’s pretty disappointed. 

When Harry dresses for her first day, she’s annoyed to discover that the plaid uniform skirt is an itchy wool material that makes the delicate skin of her thighs pink up, and _on top of that,_ it’s built to be stubbornly knee-length even on Harry, who’s relatively tall and gangly. She stands in front of the mirror surveying her reflection with a mild sort of panic creeping up in her throat, fastidiously adjusting and fiddling with her skirt, trying to figure out what looks better: wearing it rolled up so that the bottom hem rides above her knees, resulting in a thick bulge of fabric bunched around her waist that she can only hide if she untucks her white polo shirt (which is a uniform violation), or wearing it long and dowdy. 

She wonders what the _other_ girls at St. Catherine's Academy do to _their_ skirts, if none of them care about looking like Britney Spears because there are no boys to worry about, or if they’re cutthroat about appearances anyway, desperate for any reason to rip apart a new girl. She realizes she has no idea what to expect, which makes her even _more_ nervous. Harry's whole life revolves around impressing other girls, whether or not she’s aware of it. 

Wiping her sweaty palms on her skirt, she leaves it unrolled and hopes for the best. She can always hastily pin it or something when she gets a better read on what’s customary. She _hates_ herself a bit for caring so much, for allowing the status quo to affect her decisions about how to wear her clothes. She wishes she was the sort of girl who didn't give a shit about those sorts of things, but at her core of cores, she’s _not._ At her core of cores, Harry is driven desperately and compulsively by wanting other girls to like her as much as she likes them. 

When she transferred to St. Catherine's from public school, she thought the uniform would be one of the easier transitions because she wouldn’t have to rummage through the heaps of dirty clothes all over her room to find something that didn’t smell, she would instead have a set, unalterable getting-dressed-in-the-morning ritual, something to take the pressure off of keeping up with trends and feeling obligated to put on makeup. But _already_ she's finding something to be anxious about. 

Upon arrival, Harry continues to be surprised, to have her expectations shattered. She had assumed the entire student body would consist of either catty, beautiful blonde girls wearing pearls and driving BMWs (and those girls _do exist_ ;as her carpool pulls into the lot, she notices at least three Audis and a fucking _Beemer,_ what the _fuck_ ), or else very, _very_ visibly religious girls in Mary Janes and cross necklaces, clutching Bibles, ready to snuff her less-than-strict Catholic upbringing out and burn her at the stake for heresy. However, the majority of the girls she sees look just like her. Awkward teenagers in their too-long skirts, girls with loose ponytails and broken-out faces and sporty trainers on instead of dress shoes. Girls like Leanne, her carpool companion, an overly helpful senior with dark brown eyes the same color as her thick hair, which is tied up into an informal, messy bun. Harry was relieved upon meeting her, noticing her uniform had wrinkles in it and she was driving her mom’s Volvo with a broken stereo. Maybe Harry _won’t_ stand out with her Target knee-socks and very casual understanding of Catholicism. Maybe they _won’t_ see through her right away. 

“So, welcome to the senior parking lot! This is where the seniors park, self-explanatory, I guess, but also, like, true,” Leanne rambles, gesturing to the lot with her chin so she can keep both hands glued to the steering wheel. Leanne is very enthusiastic about safety. “It’s also where people go to sneak smokes and phone calls at lunch or during free period…though I don’t _recommend_ that,” she adds, casting a cutting, narrow-eyed look in Harry’s direction, like she’s prematurely reprimanding her for something she hasn’t even done yet.It would be laughable if Harry wasn't _already_ so concerned with fitting in, with making friends. Leanne hasn’t stopped treating Harry like her very young and very impressionable sister since they met, as if Harry didn’t spend her freshman year at a public school, getting her textbooks stolen from her backpack while older girls hassled her in the locker room for not wearing a bra. Harry suspects that Leanne, who’s apparently on the honor roll and secretary of the student council and very straight-laced, is taking her role as Seasoned Senior far too seriously. 

It’s fine, albeit a bit annoying. Harry has always been babyfaced and wrongly assumed innocent as a result her entire adolescence, so she’s used to it. But at the same time, it’s weirdly comforting to have a mask on that someone else has fit to her, rather than an image she was forced to create. If Leanne wants to misread her, she doesn’t mind, for now. Harry always feels like she’s playing parts, anyway. Catholic. Normal. Straight. Naive is just another one. 

“Thanks, _mom,”_ she mumbles, leaning against the window and scanning the parking lot, watching all the girls mill about and hug each other in greeting after having been separated all summer. “Do you think I’m the type to fall in with the _wrong crowd_ or something?” she teases.

Leanne parks, turning off the car and twisting around in her seat to grab her purse and backpack before dragging them into her lap, unzipping and fumbling through pockets before she finds and and pulls out a compact. “Well, _no,_ there isn’t really a wrong crowd here...there are bitches, but you don’t seem like a bitch, so. There are also girls who just don’t take their grades seriously, they’re the ones who use free periods to smoke instead of study, and there’s nothing _wrong_ with that, not exactly, but it’s not the way you want to start your year at a new school,” she explains, scrutinizing her reflection in the mirror before dabbing some lotion under her eyes. “Would you believe it’s the first day of school, and I _already_ look exhausted? Believe everything they tell you about senior year.” 

Harry isn’t paying attention, though, to what Leanne is saying or anything else. She’s peering out the window toward the edge of the parking lot where two girls are standing huddled together, heads bent. They’re sharing a cigarette and laughing, and _neither of them_ are wearing anything remotely close to the school uniform, which in and of itself is enough to stand out, enough to make her stare and her stomach clench up into uncomfortable knots. The taller one has dark hair tumbling down around her shoulders, and she’s wearing a leather jacket zipped up to her chin, thick-rimmed glasses, and a skirt so short that it nearly disappears under the jacket entirely. She looks like the “bad” girl in a Disney Channel high school special, and Harry is all about it. 

The other one, though. Harry swallows, leaning so close to the window that her brow actually presses into glass. The other one _isn’t_ a boy, but she very well could be mistaken for one at a distance, as she’s wearing nylon bike shorts instead of a skirt and an oversized Adidas hoodie that dwarfs and disguises her form. She has a short brown pixie cut and a grin so bright that Harry smiles just looking at it, even though she’s all the way over here, across the parking lot, on the other side of the glass. This girl has a skateboard that she’s idly pushing back and forth with one foot (in a beat-up white Vans slip-on, which is absolutely a uniform violation), and Harry notices as she stares at her legs that they aren’t shaved, which is somehow so terrifically exciting that her stomach drops. 

These girls…they’re nothing like she expected, so far outside the wildest realms of the types she imagined might attend St. Catherinest, that she almost wants to cry with a sudden and unexpected surge of emotion, something like relief, like longing. It sends a strange lick of heat through her body, an electric hum down her spine. She wants to _hang out with them_ , she wants to laugh at their jokes, to know their names. The draw is so powerful and visceral that she doesn't even question it, it’s as if it came from her bones, some long-buried hunger deep inside of her. 

“Who’s that?” she asks Leanne in what she hopes is a totally nonchalant and not at all revealing voice. 

Leanne looks through the window, narrowing her eyes. “Who? I don’t know everyone’s name, you’ll have to be more specific.” 

Harry tries to point nondescriptly. “Those girls…the one with the short hair and the one with the leather jacket?” 

Leanne settles back into the driver’s side knowingly, adjusting her hair, making a face like she doesn’t even _need_ to see the girls that Harry’s referring to because the description is enough. “Oh, that’ll be Olivia and Veronica. Veronica’s the one with the jacket, and Olivia’s the short one, but she goes by Louis, mostly. They’re cool, very hip and whatever, but nice enough. We have mutual friends,” she shrugs. There’s something she’s not saying, but Harry doesn’t yet know her well enough to read between the lines and decipher _what._

“Not ‘the wrong crowd’?” Harry asks, thinking _Louis,_ just trying the name on in her head, feeling it out like one does when picking up a smooth, flat pebble from a beach to try skipping. Or perhaps pocketing it to skip later. 

“They _certainly_ use their free periods to smoke, if that’s what you mean,” Leanne snorts. Then she opens her door and slides out, gesturing for Harry to follow. “C’mon, I'll introduce you. You’re gonna have to meet the seniors eventually if you’re gonna be in my car.” 

Harry’s heart stops before it leaps. She’s inexplicably _nervous_ as she trails along after Leanne, worried that she’s going to be awkward or say something stupid or otherwise ruin her chances at befriending these girls. She wasn’t necessarily popular at her old school, but she was part of a tight-knit group, and she’s always gotten along with Gemma’s friends, has _never_ felt alone or anxious in any sort of social situation. In fact, Harry has had a remarkable gift for charming people her entire _life,_ but as she follows Leanne across the lot in her new, obnoxiously pinchy penny loafers, she feels for all the world like a tag-along puppy tripping over her own feet, destined for some eminent humiliation. It’s probably because Olivia— _Louis_ —has such a brilliant, sunshine-bright smile, and it’s a dreary day outside, making the flash of her teeth seem all the more magical. An untouchable force, too good for Harry to witness. Or maybe it’s because of other things, the sort she _knows_ but doesn't like to put words to, lest it feel too constricting, too real. 

Louis rolls over on her skateboard, and Veronica follows, holding her arms out for Leanne. “Hey, you,” she drawls, smelling like leather and nicotine and mystery as she approaches. The first thing Harry processes about her is that she’s impossibly, intimidatingly beautiful. Harry puts her hands in her pockets and decidedly stares at the pavement while Leanne and Veronica hug politely and exchange customary _how was your summers._

_“Oi,_ Payno!” Louis shouts in a voice that’s somehow high and raspy at the same time, joining in on the hug and crushing the other two girls together. Her skateboard, forgotten, rolls over to Harry, who stops it with her ankle but doesn’t pick it up, petrified, rooted to the cement. “You look even more like a stick in the mud than the _last_ time I saw you, and the semester hasn’t even started! I hope you don’t lose any hair this finals season,” Louis teases fondly, tugging on Leanne’s ponytail and grinning that massive, spectacular grin. Harry stands and watches, trying to remember what it was like back when she wasn’t so fucking socially awkward and bad at introducing herself that she couldn’t make herself _speak._ It seems like an eternity ago, like these girls somehow erased her entire _history_ of social aptitude. She shoves her hands deeper into her blazer pockets and waits. 

“Who’s this?” Louis asks, noticing her before Leanne remembers that she exists. Her eyes (which are crystal blue but somehow still warm and sparkling, like the pool at an expensive Hollywood hotel or the sky on a sunny day after a rainstorm has made everything bright and clean) widen as they fall on Harry. 

“Oh, that’s Harry, we’re gonna be carpooling. She lives out by me...she’s a sophomore transfer,” Leanne explains. 

Harry offers her hand, hating how fucking _sweaty_ it is. Louis takes it and shakes it enthusiastically, flicking her chestnut fringe out of her eyes. “Nice to meet you, Harry, m’Louis and this is Veronica,” she says, sliding her free arm around Veronica’s waist and dragging her close. They look…good together, like they _fit_ somehow,and Harry’s beginning to assemble things in her brain. Louis’s short hair, her unshaved legs, the scabs on her knees from skating. Her short, blunt nails. 

Her stomach flip flops as she lets go of Louis’s delicate hand, mumbling an entirely unimpressive and woefully bland, “Right, thanks, good to meet you, too,” like she’s a _shy person_ or something. 

 

Even as they’re introduced, Veronica doesn't really _look_ at her, she just kind of nods in Harry’s general direction, cold and aloof, especially in contrast to the ball of thrumming energy that is Louis, who’s rolling onto the balls of her feel and bouncing, scrunched-up lines around her smiling eyes. Harry can’t stop, like, _noticing_ things about her because she can’t stop looking at her. She has smudges of black from the pavement on her arm, like she fell skating, and she smells sweet and spicy, boy’s cologne and Smucker’s lip balm, and Harry’s so fucking nervous about it all, uncharacteristically silent as Leanne grabs her elbow and steers her along. “Bye, girls, m’gonna take Harry to the office to get her all checked in and whatnot. See you in class.” 

“Bye, Payno, bye, New Girl Harry,” Louis yells, entirely too loudly for 8 am, but Harry’s beside herself to be called by her name, no matter the volume. She reluctantly follows Leanne up the hill toward the main campus buildings, shooting the occasional, reflexive glance over her shoulder at Veronica and Louis. She sees Louis tug a stained, too-large skirt on over her bike shorts, put out her smoke on the pavement, and link arms with Veronica before they head up the hill after them, and her gaze snaps back to Leanne, heart pounding like it’s a crime to stare. 

She blurts without thinking, “Are they…her and Veronica...are they, like, a couple?” 

Leanne looks surprised, brows arching dramatically over wide dark eyes. “No, not at all! At least, I don’t think so anyway. Veronica is straight as far as I know…kind of slutty, I hear, but with, like, guys. I’m pretty sure Louis is the only lesbian who goes here.” 

_Except me_ , Harry thinks, heart clenching so tightly and suddenly in her chest at the way that word just _happened._ Like, Louis. Louis is a lesbian, just as she suspected. The only lesbian, _except_ me. Harry’s absolutely stunned because it’s a crazy thing to think, even within the privacy of her own head. She’s never really _thought_ of herself as a lesbian, more of just a person who doesn’t care much about gender at all when it comes to dating, someone open to anyone or anything as long as they’re nice and funny and easy enough to get along with. At the same time, she’s always known, deep down in an unspeakable way, that she _prefers_ girls, while always anticipating, deep down, that she’ll end up with a boy. This weird dichotomy, this truth of her future she’s resigned herself to, longing and loss and more longing. 

But seeing Louis with her messy pixie cut and her toned biceps, marking herself so unabashedly, clearly, unapologetically as _gay_ makes it all seem even more obvious that there’s some type of inherent difference between her and Harry, that she’s probably a True Lesbian whereas Harry is some type of…cowardly imposter. Harry doesn’t know, really, all she knows for certain is that she feels somehow unworthy of the title lesbian, and no matter how sweaty her hands got when she touched Louis (oh, _god,_ they touched), there will always be a big difference between liking girls, maybe, possibly, and _being a lesbian._ The whole thing makes her sad to think about. Like she’s doomed to exist on the outskirts of girlhood, always wishing and hoping for things that just aren't _designed_ to accommodate her particular brand of odd. 

Harry must have drifted into awkward silence territory because as they walk together, Leanne hip checks her, body knocking into Harry's gently but firmly, eyes narrowed. “Why do you even ask?” she says as if she's feeling out whether Harry’s homophobic, rather than wondering if she’s gay, and that shouldn’t be a comfort, really, but it sort of is. Harry’s still whirring from a girl willfully touching her while she was spiraling into the familiar, shameful territory of gay-crisis mode, and she doesn’t want a reason to feel guiltier or weirder than she already does. 

“Just wondering...they were cute together,” she shrugs, hoping that it’s the kind of statement that will terminate the discussion all together. She just wants the focus off her, wants a break from wondering if _Leanne_ is wondering exactly _why_ she was so nervous around Louis. She feels turned inside out, like everyone can see the things she doesn't yet have names for. 

“Ah, okay then,” Leanne nods, turning back to her schedule, which she has printed out on a color-coded and highlighted sheet of paper. Harry’s waiting for her to say something more, but she never does, and eventually Harry exhales, watching her penny loafers on the pavement, glad she doesn't have to think about what any of this means anymore. Instead, she thinks about Louis, purely and without the pressure of her own self-criticism. Just the blue of her eyes and the crinkles beside them. 

—-

Harry’s first day is stressful, simultaneously moving too quickly and not quickly enough, so much so that she keeps getting confused and subsequently _lost_. It doesn’t help that St. Catherine’s is not only fucking enormous but also basically a maze. It’s a renovated convent and decidedly creepy and old-fashioned as a result, the classrooms downstairs off the main hallway distantly reminding Harry of very fancy, well-furnished prison cells, if prison cells were haunted by the ghosts of long-dead nuns. There’s also not one but _three_ spiral staircases, a cavernous marble fireplace in the entry room, and a chapel with spectacular stained glass windows depicting a horribly crucified Jesus. It’s absolutely _nothing_ like Harry’s old school, and she’s as uncomfortable as she is impressed with the whole thing. It’s like attending a religious, non-magical version of Hogwarts, and the more she thinks about that, the less she likes the idea, the creepier it feels. 

It doesn’t help that the other girls in her class are doing absolutely nothing to make friends. They clearly all know each other already and keep shrieking and hugging and screaming _I missed you!!!_ as Harry pushes through masses of bodies to make it to her next class without getting lost or falling off one of the staircases. By the time lunch rolls around, she’s wiped out and feeling less than social, not having the slightest idea where Leanne tends to eat so she could at least see a familiar face. 

She takes her turkey sandwich outside and plops down exhaustedly at the edge of the pristine green lawn that sprawls between the library and the main hall, beyond caring if she spends her first day of her sophomore year of high school eating alone. There she sits, watching groups of girls filter out of the building and onto the grass, all in their matching uniforms, the white knee-socks and rolled (or not rolled) skirts. Everyone sort of blends into each other, a mess of green and blue plaid, of ill-fitting gray blazers, until suddenly she spies a spot of blackness amid it all, like a raven in a sea of pigeons, a drop of ink spilled on a page of notes. Harry stops chewing, scanning the crowd until her eyes fall unwaveringly on Louis in her black Adidas hoodie, her laughter cutting out across the sky explosively as she jumps onto another girl’s back, ruffling her hair as they both collapse onto the grass, shrieking.

Harry’s suddenly very self-conscious about being alone when only _moments_ ago she didn’t care. She scoots frantically on her ass until she’s on the periphery of a group of girls eating nearby, a few of whom she recognizes from her English class. “Hullo,” she says when ten pairs of eyes fall on her. “M’Harry, I’m new and a sophomore transfer, so, like…d’you mind if I sit with you?” It’s a shitty first meeting, but it’s better than _Louis_ noticing, than _Louis_ thinking she has no friends. 

Everyone is polite, if not kind, and they shift to accommodate Harry and ask her about her old school, what it was like to have _boys_ in class (what an absurd question, as if all it takes is two years to forget how obnoxious the boys were in middle school), where she’s from, what she likes to study. It’s small talk, but Harry’s good at first impressions (usually), and by the end of lunch, they all think she’s hilarious and want to be friends, so Harry supposes she won’t have to do the whole “locking herself in the bathroom and crying alone at lunch” bit, which is a relief, to be honest. Still, she thinks of Louis, and thinks of her some more. 

The bell rings, and she shoulders her book bag, following her new, convenient group back to the main hall. She can’t help but be aware of the _other_ group of girls ten feet or so behind her, so _loud_ and obnoxious and chaotic and…magnetic, really. She shoots a furtive glance over her shoulder, only to lock gazes with the apparent ringleader of said group, Louis, with her impossible blue eyes, her distinctive gales of laughter. Harry’s stomach flips over, but she manages to smile. It’s like Louis is _everywhere,_ a presence like liturgical smoke, filling Harry’s lungs and making her choke. 

Louis nods to her, waving casually before hooking that arm around a tall, very pretty girl with platinum blonde hair tipped in pink. They dissolve into laughter at something another girl says, and Louis’s grin expands, splits, so big and wonderful that Harry wonders if her cheeks sting from always smiling like that. 

There are butterflies in Harry’s stomach, making her tight-throated as she tears her gaze away, her smile at her own shoes small and private. She checks the crudely drawn map one of her lunch-mates made for her and turns the next corner to find the science labs, which takes her in the opposite direction from Louis and her group. Still, as she slides into a desk in the back of the bio classroom, dragging out a new notebook and creasing it open, she thinks of Louis, of her sharp cheekbones and artfully messy hair, of the way it seems like she’s always having fun, even on the first day of fucking _school,_ the place where summer dreams go to die. 

She chews on the cap of her pen, sighing as she messily doodles two interlocking hearts. It shouldn’t be hard to befriend Louis. Harry’s good at making friends, and Louis clearly has a lot of them. 

The rest of the day crawls by, but once the final bell rings, Harry shoots out of her last class and down the hill to the senior parking lot, anxious to get home and decompress, mostly, but also to be in a place that Louis frequents. Her heart is in her throat at the mere idea of seeing Louis again, even though she _knows_ she’ll be too nervous to speak if she does. 

Once she gets down there, Leanne is nowhere to be seen, but Louis and Veronica are sitting on the trunk of _her_ _car,_ sharing a cigarette nonchalantly, like they’re supposed to be there. Louis has shed her hoodie and her polo shirt, wearing nothing but a tattered tank over a sports bra, arms looking gloriously shapely and golden in the late afternoon sunlight, as if she spent her whole summer skating at the beach, browning in the Southern California glare. Harry nearly chokes on her own spit. “Heya, Harry, welcome back to the glamorous senior parking lot,” Louis announces, waving. “If you smoke, you can smoke down here. S’technically off campus so you can’t get into trouble. _Technically_. Payno will tell you otherwise, but you’ll soon learn that you shouldn’t listen to her if you want to have any friends. She needs to loosen up.” 

“Is that why you’re on her car?” Harry asks, recovering quickly in spite of the way that her heart is lodged defiantly up in her throat, remembering that she’s meant to be _friends_ with Louis, not turn into a sputtering mess every time she’s in her presence. “To loosen her up?”

Louis’s brows shoot up, and she exchanges a glance with Veronica, who flicks her dark hair from one shoulder to the other before tapping ash off the butt of the cigarette. Then Louis bursts into laughter, rocking back and forth, smacking her knee as she nearly topples off the car. Harry sort of lights up, thrilled to have made her fall apart like this, even if she doesn't even really realize _why,_ doesn’t know what she's said that's so funny. It feels good, like winning a race. 

“You’re _funny,_ Harold,” Louis wheezes, taking the cigarette from Veronica. “That was truly funny.” 

Harry must have looked surprised at having been called _Harold_ because Veronica blows an elegant wisp of smoke out of her mouth before saying, “Don’t take it personally...Lou gives everyone a nickname, everyone she likes, anyway. It’s a compliment. Do you want a drag?” she asks then, gesturing to the cigarette. 

Harry looks longingly at it for a moment, the way that it’s tucked into Louis’s pretty pink lips, which are thin and curled up at the corners, smiling even when she’s smoking. Harry _wants_ to smoke, if only to feel the paper in her mouth, wet from Louis’s spit. Her heart clenches, and it almost _scares_ her how terrible and debilitating and sudden this feeling is, whatever it is. A crush, she supposes, just like all the other girls she’s fallen for in various, impossible ways, acknowledged but never to be spoken of again. She shakes her head, waving a hand to dissipate smoke. “Nope, I don’t smoke cigarettes. Weed, sometimes, but not tobacco.” 

“Smart girl,” Louis says, nodding to her, and Harry’s fucking body won’t stop _doing weird shit,_ her lungs suddenly contracting so that she can’t really _breathe_ properly, cigarette or no cigarette. She’s worried it’ll read on her face, but luckily something to her right catches Louis’s attention, prompting her to scream, “Oi, oi!! Nyller!” before vaulting off Leanne’s car and launching into the arms of a blonde, sporty-looking girl in a visor. The girl drops her golf bag to properly embrace Louis while she spins her around, and they both almost fall over. This seems like a common occurrence with Louis-hugs, getting bowled over, and Harry wishes she had first-hand experience with it, the force, the impact, the smell of Louis’s cigarettes in her hair. 

“Tommo!” the girl shouts before depositing Louis back onto the cement. Louis tries to jump onto her again, but the girl stops her, grabbing her shoulders and holding her at arm's length, wheezing, “You’re gonna break my bum knee, girl, quit it. And you’re scaring the freshman.” 

Harry snaps her mouth shut, only now realizing how obviously she’s been staring at the spectacle. It’s just that Louis is so _physical_ with everyone, a wild bundle of pure, raw energy, and Harry feels warmer just _witnessing it,_ just standing in her orbit. “Not a freshman,” she corrects, holding out a hand for this golf girl to shake. “Sophomore transfer. And m’not scared, just…very tired. It’s been a long day, and I had to wake up at, like, 6, and I’m still on my summer schedule,” she explains, shrugging, well aware that she’s _again_ missing an opportunity to be funny, to be _charming_. It’s so much _harder_ around Louis and Louis's friends. 

“Tell me about it,” the girl groans, batting Harry’s hand away in favor of pulling her into a fierce, bone-crushing hug. “I’m Nyla, by the way. And I don’t do handshakes...handshakes are for the weak,” she jokes before letting Harry go. “Except with Veronica because she’ll try to hit me if I hug her, and she hits hard.” 

“You always smell like gym and Fritos,” Veronica says lightly from the car, frowning. 

“Fuck off,” Nyla snaps, shooting a good-natured grin in Veronica’s direction before turning back around. “Sorry I thought you were a freshman, I’ve just never seen you before, and I know literally _everyone_.”

“It’s fine! I’m Harry, by the way,” she says breathlessly, pushing her hair out of her eyes and trying to tuck it behind her ear, even though it’s too short from her summer chop to stay for any prolonged period of time. “I’m carpooling with Leanne, so I’ll be hanging out down here sometimes.” 

“Sweet!” Nyla grins enthusiastically, kicking loosely at Louis’s curvy ass. “So, Tommo, looks like we don’t have a _single_ class together this semester, which is positively tragic. Does that mean I can hang with the theater crowd on the weekends? I need my dose of drama,” she adds, waggling her eyebrows. 

Louis scoffs. “S’long as you don’t bring your ugly golf…sticks,” she says, pointing an accusatory fingers at Nyla’s bag of clubs. “I don’t wanna have to subject my people to your barbaric ways.”

They both cackle at that, clearly sharing some inside joke before Nyla grabs Louis in another bear hug, waves to Harry and Veronica, and then bounces off. “See ya, ladies, gotta go to practice. Harry, welcome to this hell-school, by the way!” she shouts, saluting over her shoulder. 

“Nyla’s a terrific jock, but we love her,” Louis sighs, crossing her arms over her chest and popping her hip out. “And she does _not_ smell like gym and Fritos, _rude,_ ” she says to Veronica, sitting back down beside her and squeezing her knee. 

Harry watches the exchange, the way that Veronica’s olive skin dimples under Louis’s fingers, and she wishes she had the power to slow the rapid-fire beat of her heart. “Do you guys know what Leanne’s doing?” Harry asks, wondering if she has time to, like, hop up onto the hood beside Louis and start chatting. She wants to so badly, to achieve that sort of nonchalance, but she needs at least a _few_ minutes to psych herself up. 

“Probably being boring,” Louis declares, spreading out on the windshield, shirt riding up a few inches to reveal a strip of golden skin, her padded stomach. Now that she’s not in a giant hoodie, Harry can see how _curvy_ she is, her strong, thick thighs, tits creating a sloped hill in her shirt even as she lies on her back, whereas Harry’s totally disappear when she’s lying flat. Harry could pillow her head on Louis’s chest and be comfy, if they were ever close enough for her to get away with it. Harry’s sighing wistfully when Louis adds, “Leanne is theoretically cool, but she destroys her maximum potential by being extremely boring. I suggest you hang out with us to prevent her boring-ness from rubbing off on you.” She explains this all matter-of-factly before sitting up and waving at someone behind Harry, revealing that she has underarm hair, too, soft-looking and matted down with sweat, and, _god,_ Harry can actually feel herself fucking blushing, something unspeakable twisting inside her.

“We were just talking about you, Payno!” Louis calls, and Veronica slides off the car, sauntering past Harry toward Leanne. 

“Lou was being mean,” she clarifies, tugging her skirt down. 

“I _know,_ I heard...the thing is, Louis, you don’t talk, you _yell,_ ”Leanne says, sounding totally unperturbed and unsurprised that Louis was talking shit about her, which leads Harry to believe it wasn't malicious at all. “I could hear you from the top of the hill, just so you know...like, in case you’re trying to keep any secrets.” 

“No secrets, only friends,” Louis says with a smile, reaching out and patting Leanne on the head patronizingly. 

“How was your first day, Harry?” Leanne asks, pushing Louis’s arm off. “Nothing too terrible happened, I presume?” 

Harry shrugs. “I only got lost twice, ended up in the chapel accidentally when I was looking for the office, which, incidentally, is a disturbing room. I’m not a real Catholic, so maybe I don’t get it, but why the mournful bleeding Jesus? He was so sad. And there was so much blood,” Harry grimaces, holding up her hands to demonstrate exactly how sad and how much blood there was. Louis cracks up again, which is wonderful. 

“Oh, god, the chapel,” Leanne sighs, rolling her eyes dramatically. “I’m Catholic, and even I think it’s creepy.” 

“I wanna have sex in there some day,” Louis says dreamily, carding her hands through her hair. “Nothing gets me in the mood like guilt and repentance.” 

Harry covers her mouth with her hand, shocked into a moment of horrible, stomach-turning silence before Veronica snickers, letting her know that it’s alright to join in. Leanne scowls. “That’s offensive, Louis, have some respect.” 

“Oh, _come on,_ Payno, you’re only Catholic when you wanna feel oppressed about something,” she snorts, grabbing her hoodie, balling it up, and throwing it in Leanne’s general direction. “The convenient Catholic,” she sneers as she misses and Harry catches it instead, thinking that she might not actually survive this exchange, touching Louis’s clothes and hearing her talk about _chapel_ sex all in the span of minutes. 

Veronica tugs on Louis’s elbow, flattening her lips and making a face. “As fun as this is,” she says, not making it sound very fun at all, “I don’t want to spend _anymore_ time at school than necessary? No offense to you girls,” she adds, nodding mostly to Leanne. “Come on, Lou, liquor store time.” 

“Ahhh, right, liquor store time,” Louis echoes, tilting back against Veronica, head falling against her shoulder, eyes sliding shut, and, _god,_ she’s lovely. If Harry could draw a portrait of the prettiest girl imaginable, it would resemble Louis, all sun and sweat-salt and gold and caramel. There’s something so effortlessly androgynous about her; she’s so _cool_ , boyish and girlish all at once, bright like sunshine, which is similarly genderless. She just _is_ , simply and purely. A lovely creature, exceeding beyond the boundaries that Harry used to think were real. 

Harry chews the inside of her lip, watching them both as they head to Veronica’s car, a not quite vintage yet still very old and impressive Mustang with a bunch of stickers on the bumper. It’s the kind of car that carries beautiful people into their sunsets at the end of a movie, away from school, from monotony. With a leap of sensation in her chest so _real_ and aching that she very nearly chokes on it, Harry wants to climb inside, too. 

“See you guys,” she says instead, letting Leanne guide her with a condescending hand on her lower back. 

On the ride home, Leanne tells her all about some annoying student council meeting that went overtime, how people are trying to start unnecessary drama even on the first day, how much she dislikes the treasurer because she isn’t even good at _math_ (“Who runs for treasurer when they aren’t good at _math_?! ”). Harry half-listens, mostly messing around on her phone, trying hard not to think of threadbare tank-tops, of genderless sunshine and sex in chapels. 

She tries, but she kind of fails. 

CHAPTER 2

The first week of school is a blur of turkey sandwiches, syllabus handouts, itchy blazers, spiral staircases, and the inside of Leanne’s car with its gutted stereo and graveyard of empty Starbucks cups. And, of course, amid the throngs of otherwise indistinguishable students in their plaid skirts and scuffed dress shoes, there’s Louis. Everything is gray until Louis appears and changes the color, like she’s the light and Harry’s a prism, twisting fractals until they explode in rainbow all over the walls. 

And Harry wants _so desperately to be her friend_ that the desire bowls her over every time she sees her, smells her cigarettes and cologne, hears that perfect laugh. She gets so scared of and mortified by her own desperation that she _hides_ whenever she has a chance to run into Louis, heart in her throat, choking her silent. It’s really inconvenient, but she just hasn’t found her fucking _chill_ around Louis yet. She’s had crushes before, but never has she had a crush that she could describe as debilitating. Not until Louis, anyway. It’s, like, _amazing_ how debilitating it is. Who knew you could legitimately forget how to breathe? Who knew how impossible it would be to ignore this side of herself, the side she thought she could so easily silence?

Harry knows that she should just get over herself and say _hey_ the next time she runs into Louis, like any normal acquaintance, instead of grabbing her books and bolting into the nearest bathroom or closet or whatever to marinate in self-loathing shame while Louis passes by, having fun with her actual friends who aren’t scared to talk to her. Harry can’t _believe_ she’s so pitiful. They’ve _been_ _introduced_ , so why does she get so _stupid_ around Louis? 

It might have to do with the fact that ninety percent of Harry’s idle classroom daydreams revolve around not just being Louis’s friend but the steadily more concrete and terrifying fantasy of being Louis’s _girlfriend_. Which is a pointless, pathetic daydream to have seeing as even if she _did_ get over herself enough to stop hiding from her in the halls and they somehow started hanging out, she’d never be the type of girl Louis would _date,_ and that’s, like…sad and discouraging. First off, Harry’s a sophomore. Second off, no one even knows that she’s gay. _She_ doesn’t even know that she’s gay, as _knowing_ seems too massive a thing to adopt just because she’s liked girls. (At the same time, liking Louis seems too massive a thing to write off simply as a result of being gay.) Nothing feels big enough, or else it’s too big, and the whole of it is discouragingly confusing. 

Nothing about her feels intriguing enough for Louis, _good enough_ for Louis. She cowardly refuses labels because thinking about it in depth is too hard, but she doesn’t smoke, she’s never kissed a girl, she’s not edgy or _dangerous_ like Veronica, she's not eye-catchingly pretty like Perrie, Louis’s friend with the pink-tipped blonde hair and sparkling eyes and amazing singing voice. Harry spends a lot of time in class wistfully sketching palm trees in the margins of her notebook, daydreaming about Louis riding a motorcycle down the Sunset Strip with Perrie on the back of it like Lady Gaga in the Judas video, trailing a watercolor scarf behind her, laughing with her head thrown back, wearing a leather jacket that Louis lent her, and looking like she belongs in it. 

It makes Harry ache to think about because _she_ would like to be on the back of Louis’s motorcycle, if Louis had one. She would like to wrap her arms around that solid, curvy waist, holding on tightly while they tear down the road in a wake of exhaust. She would like to bury her nose into the warm, fly-away strands of hair at the base of Louis’s neck, feeling the rumble of the engine through her entire body like something magical, something alive. 

The thing is, Harry will never be the type of girl who looks good on the back of a motorcycle. She’s not _sure_ what type of girl she is, but her hair turns into a tousled puff ball when the curls are torn apart by the wind, and she’s too tall and gangly to ever really look delicate or pretty perched on the back of anything, except for maybe a very large draft horse, and there’s nothing sexy about _that_. Her face is pretty, sure, and she looks halfway decent when she tries hard with makeup, but she very, very rarely tries hard anymore, and when she does, people always ask her where she’s going or what the occasion is because she so seldom does anything save for a smudge of kohl when she’s looking especially tired. Plus, too many boys made grabby hands in middle school the first time she wore lipstick to a friend’s party, so she stopped putting effort into her appearance at all, not wanting that type of attention from them. She knows that she isn’t _ugly_ , not by a long shot, but that doesn’t mean Louis would ever give her her jacket. She’s too young and flat-chested and unsure of herself around Louis to flirt properly, anyway. She’s designed her life to fade into the background of other people’s stories because the limelight is too much pressure, but _now,_ when she wants to stand out, she’s realizing that she doesn’t know _how._

Harry’s even beginning to doubt that she and Louis can be friends at all. No matter how many times she reminds herself that Louis and Veronica were _nice_ to her on the first day of school, that Louis called her funny and Veronica offered her a cigarette, she doesn’t feel in their league or something. Like she’s miles away from their world, pantomiming on the other side of thick, defending glass. 

She’s made a casual group of friends in her own year, sweet, nice enough girls who are neither popular nor made fun of, but she hardly has anything in common with them, and they’re all _excruciatingly_ normal and basic. She craves something _more_ , something sharper _,_ darker, _different,_ but at the same time, feels like she doesn’t really deserve that. She can’t shake the feeling that if Louis remembers she exists at all, she’s already judged her, boxed her in, written her off. A square and a sophomore transfer, in her pristine uniform with the ironed blazer, uninteresting and at least _visibly_ rule-abiding in every way. Harry is not _marked_ as different the way that Louis is, there’s nothing about her anyone would read as gay _._ She doesn’t know how to signal to Louis that they’re the same, and everything she thinks of seems awkward or creepy or inauthentic or desperate. Plus, they’re _not_ the same. If they were, Louis would already know, Louis would _see_ her, and she wouldn’t be so scared and confused all the time by the strength of her feelings. 

It’s a small school, and Harry soon hears rumors from her new friends while they sit and gossip at lunch, heads bent forward, tittering like birds on a wire. Louis doesn’t come up right away, but Harry _knows_ that she will, so she braces herself for the inevitable, wondering if she’ll learn things she doesn't want to know, if she’ll have to defend Louis, who in spite of her magnetic energy and entourage of friends is also somehow on the outskirts of the student body, too _other_ to be assumed into the masses. Harry has noticed the way that people are wary of her, the way that they move to the other side of the staircase to avoid her when she’s alone, like her sexuality is something you can catch. Even though it’s so lovely when Louis smiles, sometimes she stomps down the hall alone with her arms crossed and her chin jutting out, eyes flashing and cold, lips flattening out defensively. Everything about Louis’s body language in these moments screams _try me,_ like she’s ready to fight, and Harry doesn't doubt that she would or that she has, tooth and nail and for very many years, simply to exist honestly. 

“You guys know that one girl?” one of Harry’s new acquaintances asks, dipping a baby carrot into her hummus before biting into it with a snap. “The senior, the lesbian?” 

She says the word like it’s a dirty joke, and the rest of the girls giggle like it _is_ one. Harry’s gut sinks horribly. She supposes that they aren’t being outright _mean_ and she should be grateful for that, but she feels so _alone,_ adjusting her skirt across her knees and trying to eat her sandwich in the way one might eat if one wasn’t having a minor panic attack. She swallows with difficulty, eyes darting between the girls on either side of her. 

“You mean Olivia Tomlinson? I heard that she’s tried to sleep with, like, half her class. While they’re drunk, like, at parties or whatever,” one girl says sagely, face very somber, as if this is a serious matter and not baseless speculation. “Everyone says no, but she keeps trying because she’s desperate since no one here is gay.” 

Harry actually rolls her eyes, stunned by how insanely naive it is that these people think a) there are no gay girls save for one at an _all-girls’ school_ and b) that a girl like Louis would be desperate in _any_ universe. She forces her mouthful of food down, chases it with a sip of orange soda, and blurts, “That’s such a load of shit,” voice far sharper than she means for it to be. 

Everyone stares at her for a moment, eyes wide, mouths parted. She holds her ground, even if her hands are shaking. 

The girl to her right shrugs and pushes her salad around with her fork. “See, I heard she has an off-campus girlfriend. Or a few.” 

And that…might be true. Harry doesn’t actually _know_ Louis, in spite of being, like, obsessed with her. She continues on anyway, though, heart pounding in her chest. “She goes by Louis, by the way, and she’s cool. I _strongly_ doubt she’s hitting on her straight friends, that’s, like, ridiculous,” Harry manages to get out, face hot, fingers tremulous, whole body thrumming with adrenaline. She feels like _she’s_ the subject of this conversation, and it’s no _wonder_ with the way that everyone’s _staring,_ their eyes suddenly wide and cast upon her, as if in defending Louis, she’s confessing about herself. 

“How do you know? Are you guys friends?” the first girls asks, sounding positively delighted to get potential intel on Olivia Tomlinson. Her eyes light up as she adds, “Are _you_ gay?”

Harry saw this coming, luckily, so she sneers in irritation instead of looking shocked or falling apart. “Heeeey, don’t say it like it’s a bad thing. Would you care if I was?” she counters, turning the scrutiny on the group. “Y’know, when I came to Catholic school, I thought people would be _nicer_ instead of more judgmental,”she states, even if it’s a lie. It works, though, and the girl immediately changes her tune. 

“No, of course not! I mean, I wouldn't mind...I love gay people, like, I love _Drag Race_ and _Queer Eye_ and stuff, ” she says hastily. “I just...I don’t know anyone who's been friends with Olivia, er, Louis. She’s, like, a loner theater girl, but aside from that, I don’t really know anything about her.” 

“Then you probably shouldn’t talk shit about her,” Harry says with a cheery smile, well aware that she has to gain respect in this circle, use her year at public school as cultural capital in order to create a protective barrier. That way, whatever she does is _cool,_ urban, informed, or whatever. If she thinks it’s lame to be casually homophobic, then they’ll follow suit. She has to weaponize what makes her different from them, rather than letting them use it against her. It’s…well, it’s not real friendship, that’s for sure, but it’s not ridicule, and at least for now, Harry thinks that’s better. “ _Anyway,_ she’s not even a loner?! I carpool with a senior and see her in groups literally all the time, like, she’s friends with Veronica and that girl Nyla and Perrie Edwards,” Harry explains, still trembling as she resumes the slow, hopefully methodical performance of eating her sandwich like this conversation isn’t inexplicably the scariest thing she’s done in a long time. 

“Perrie is so pretty,” one of the girls says wistfully, and everyone agrees, so the conversation devolves into a discussion of who the prettiest seniors are and where Perrie gets her eyebrows threaded. It’s a typical Wednesday again, mundane, trivial bullshit that doesn’t mean anything at all. Harry sighs, shuddering with the force of it, feeling like she somehow dodged a bullet, emerged from a firefight with nothing but a bloody graze. She’s safe, at least for now. 

But it doesn’t even feel _good_ to be safe. She finishes her sandwich, hardly tasting a thing, wondering what they’d be talking about right now if she had answered _are you gay?_ with a firm, self-assured, unafraid _probably._

She wonders if that would feel better than the dull ease of security. If she wants to be secure, or if she wants to ride on the back of a motorcycle, no helmet, thumbs hooked into Louis’s belt-loops. 

—-

On the second Friday of the school year, Harry attends her first Mass at Catholic school, and it’s even weirder than she thought it would be. She’s gone to church before, holiday services with her Christian friend from elementary school, but that’s absolutely _nothing_ compared to the intense _ritual_ of Mass. Harry has no idea what’s going on, but there’s smoke and incense and a priest singing in _Latin,_ and when he addresses the student body (are they a congregation now? Harry has no clue) at certain points, they _respond in unison,_ and it would be amusingly eerie if Harry didn’t _know_ that everyone was taking it all very seriously. She keeps looking around, wide-eyed and amazed, just _floored_ that so many people are, like, unironically involved in this thing. She feels totally unprepared. Maybe non-Catholic freshmen get a crash course on Mass before they attend their first one, but as a transfer, she’s totally in the dark. It’s terrifying and confusing, but she kind of loves it. 

Currently, the priest is doing something to the little Jesus crackers to make them _actually_ Jesus because apparently cannibalism is fine and dandy in Catholicism. Harry covers her mouth with her hands to stifle her reflexive and totally inappropriate laughter, eyes flickering across the room frantically to see if there’s anyone _else_ who thinks it’s fucking weird that they’re about to drink _actual blood,_ apparently.Of course, she already knows where Louis’s sitting. This is a terrible habit of hers, finding Louis in every crowded room so that she can be distantly anxious as she draws closer or ache with loss if she leaves.

Harry is forever in orbit, even if Louis doesn’t know it, and today is no exception. She knows that Louis’s in the second row on the left side of the auditorium, over where the seniors sit. She’s breaking dress code in yet another oversized hoodie (hunter green this time, with a white fir tree silkscreened on the back...Harry _might_ have stared at her when they filed into the auditorium), shoes up on the chair in front of her, head drifting casually to Veronica’s shoulder. Harry can sense that she’s giggly, snorting into her palm just like _she_ is, and just knowing that they’re experiencing variations of the same feeling sends a lick of electricity down her spine. Her heart thuds its way up into her throat, palms getting sweaty as she wipes them on her skirt, embarrassed because she has such an enormous crush on Louis that imagining her finding the absurd concept of transubstantiation as hilarious as Harry does makes her _sweat._

She risks glancing in Louis’s direction and finds her attempting to conceal an unconcealable smile in the sleeve of her illegal hoodie, laugh lines creasing so soft and lovely near her temples. Veronica is also stifling laughter, though more successfully. Harry’s chest pangs in longing, she wants to know _what_ they’re laughing about, she wants to have her arm laced casually through Louis’s, just like Veronica. 

She’s so deeply mired in fantasy that she doesn’t even notice the student body (congregation?!) stand quite suddenly, leaving her sprawled out and awkward on her seat, Louis lost in the crowd. It takes her a moment to realize that the students are going up to get their Jesus Crispy, freshmen first, tiny and nervous and swimming in their giant blazers. Harry falls into line with the sophomores, too distracted by looking for Louis’s dress-code violation hoodie to notice what she’s supposed to be doing, how she’s supposed to act. Once she gets to the priest, she just stares at him, hands clenched at her sides, “the body,” he intones, about to shove a cracker in her mouth like she’s a parrot. 

Harry panics. “Oh, shit, no, I’m not…m’not Catholic,” she fumbles, eyes widening as she splays her hands over her mouth to prevent any accidental and probably sacrilegious cannibalism. She’s pretty sure that she, a sinning agnostic, isn’t supposed to eat Jesus, and as the priest stares back at her with equally wide, horrified eyes, her suspicion is confirmed. 

He thankfully takes pity on her. “Ah, a blessing, then. Here, cross your arms, hands on your shoulders,” he advises, and Harry does as she’s told, flushing wildly because she can _feel_ her Catholic classmates judging her, giggling and scoffing as she holds up the line. The priest gently crosses her. “May the Lord be with you,” he mumbles, sounding embarrassed on her behalf,which is fair because _Harry_ is embarrassed, _everyone_ is embarrassed, and this is all a terrible disaster. “You can take your seat now,” he whispers, and Harry nods gratefully, cheeks burning. 

As she collapses onto the padded upholstery of her auditorium seat, her gaze is magnetically drawn to Louis again, as it often is, and she’s horrified to find that Louis’s looking back at her, the corner of her lovely mouth turned up into an amused smirk, eyes sparkling mischievously. Harry flushes even more spectacularly, so deeply that she can feel heat radiating off her face in waves, like she has a fucking _sunburn_ , and she _knows_ that she doesn’t look cute all red (who does??), which just makes her blush that much harder. Louis shakes her head, mimicking a quiet, slow clap before shooting a thumbs up in Harry’s direction. 

Harry fixes her hair. It’s her only defense, her customary “shaking the whole of it forward before pulling the fringe across her brow” move, which at least gives her an excuse to hide her eyes for a minute, compose herself, recover from the trauma of very nearly being _fed Jesus_ by an _actual priest._ When she looks up, Louis’s still grinning at her, eyes shining like perfect sapphires in this dingy auditorium, and Harry can hardly believe that she’s real. She grins back, shaking her head self-deprecatingly, and then, for a moment, they share a silent laugh. A “neither of us knows what the fuck is going on, godless girls in a Catholic world”laugh, and it feels _amazing,_ to have this moment of mutual understanding. 

Harry is sort of elated for the rest of Mass. She keeps stealing glances at Louis (Louis, who laughed not _at her_ but _with her_ only moments ago, smile hot, like touching the sun), at the way she’s now resting her hand in Veronica’s lap, trying to hold still while Veronica painstakingly doodles a detailed henna-style filigree on her. If Louis were to touch Harry, she would leave ink curls on her skin, smudged black on the insides of her thighs, on her neck, beneath the curve of her breast. Just like lipstick kisses. Just like bruises. 

Harry sighs deeply, well aware that these are not Mass-appropriate thoughts but not caring. It’s not like she’s Catholic or anything. 

—-

Harry spends another week just _watching_ Louis, all while trying to appear as if she’s _not_ watching her. She watches her skate in the senior parking lot after school, ollying off curbs and skinning her elbow and whizzing by Perrie to steal her beanie, cackling all the while. She watches her share joints in Veronica’s car, head bent and hair looking lovely and shiny in the rearview as she lights up, lazy mouthfuls of smoke twisting and spiraling up into the sunshine through the cracked window, making the parking lot smell sticky and sweet and green. She watches her race through the hall when she’s late to class, backpack open, cheeks flushed. She watches and she watches, and sometimes, if she’s very brave, she’ll nod or wave. Usually a short, aborted half-motion, but Louis always returns it with a brilliant grin, and that’s…well. It’s _something._

It has become impossible to ignore or write away or rename what she’s feeling. Even if she doesn't like to say it, she knows what it is. Knows what she is. 

The next time they really interact is on a chilly Tuesday morning, and it’s entirely on accident. Leanne picks Harry up a whole _hour_ earlier than she usually does because she has a student council meeting before school that gets cancelled while they’re still coasting down the near-empty freeway, 5 am seeming impossibly dark around them. “Well, I guess I have more time to study for my Spanish test,” Leanne gripes, sighing deeply as she checks her phone once they make it to campus and frowns at the text. 

Harry snatches the phone away, dumping it unceremoniously into the cup holder. “That test is literally _next week._ You don’t have to study for it _now_ ,” she says, exhausted by Leanne’s active refusal to do anything fun, ever. “C’mon, hang out with me...let’s have a singalong,” Harry decides in a flash of brilliance, remembering that for all of Leanne’s self-consciousness and anal-retentive study habits, she _does_ whip out a mean car karaoke. “Spice Girls,” Harry announces, queuing up some songs. She’s determined to make the fact that she woke up too early on a Tuesday worthwhile, and Leanne can join her or not. 

“Okay, so studying for Spanish _might_ be a little premature, but I could really use some time to double-check my calculus homework,” Leanne says, skeptically watching Harry hook her phone up with the aux cable. “I can put on my noise-cancelling headphones, though, if you want to—”

“Nope, you’re gonna sing...there’s no one to hear you ‘cept for me, and I _know_ there’s a diva waiting to come out. C’mooooon, please, Leanne,” Harry begs, turning up the volume and pouting. “We, like…never have any fun.” 

Leanne’s resolve crumbles, as most resolves do in the face of the Spice Girls. “Okaay,” she sighs dramatically, taking down her ponytail presumably for hair-whipping purposes. “If you insist...but as soon as people start showing up, we shut it down and pretend it never happened.” 

Harry’s so excited that she bounces in her seat. The sun is starting to peek out over the horizon, and the thrilling, whistle-blowing sounds at the very beginning of “Spice Up Your Life” are blaring over the broken stereo at an alarming volume. Normally uptight, straight-laced Leanne is exasperatedly beginning a muted bop on the driver’s side because, contrary to popular belief, she actually has a sense of rhythm. “Are you ready, my kung-fu fighting dancing queen?” Harry asks, her grin huge and cheesy as she punches the air. 

Leanne smiles a muted smile and then pokes at Harry’s dimple. “I suppose so. Also, you look like a ten-year-old...just so you know.” 

“That’s fine, I’m indulging my inner child...s’perfectly natural, Leanne,” Harry sniffs, followed by “Shut up, vocals are coming.” 

They’re positively screaming by the time anyone else shows up, too lost to the music and their mad, chaotic impromptu dance number to remember that this activity was supposed to _stop_ when people started arriving at school. The car is actually rocking back and forth, though, so it’s not as if they’re being subtle. 

Harry doesn't even notice Louis and Nyla racing over to join until they’re already _there,_ and at that point, it’s too late to pretend that she was doing anything other than belting out every single lyric to “Wannabe” at full volume into her cellphone, which she’s using as a fake microphone, gesticulating wildly with her free hand. The damage has been done, and Louis Tomlinson officially knows about her Spice Girls thing, which seems…fine, actually, because Louis’s singing along, too, her hands splayed on Leanne’s window as she and Nyla press their cheeks together, two pairs of eyes wide and blue with excitement. 

“Roll it down!” Louis yells, pointing to the window, and Harry complies, red-faced and stunned. Nyla peels back and starts jumping up and down behind Louis, who's taking up all the room, so in seconds, she’s scrambling over to the driver’s side to sing with Leanne, who’s totally given up on preserving her formerly thick veneer of dignity, rolling her eyes and shimmying along to the beat. 

Harry’s forgetting the words because Louis’s _leaning in_ through her now open window,pushing herself inside the car, belting the chorus _right into Harry’s face,_ like it’s a full-blown fucking serenade. Leanne cranks up the volume even more, which luckily sort of drowns out the fact that Harry’s falling apart, especially when Louis spreads one hand over her tummy while she points at Harry with the other, decidedly crooning the line, “If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends,” _right to her,_ singing voice lovely and soft and hoarse and high all at once, like honey beginning to crystalize because everything about Louis is sweet and golden. 

“Friendship never ennndddddds,” Harry remembers, finding her voice before it promptly evaporates in her throat again as Louis leans ever closer, all cheeky and flirtatious, batting her insanely long lashes (??? why are they so long???) while she finishes up the chorus with an insane, dramatic vibrato. Then she flips her fringe out of her eyes, clears her throat, and launches into the bridge campily, every word crisp as she spits it out. Harry feels like she’s gonna _die,_ she’s not sure why she didn’t think Louis would be the type of girl who could whip the bridge of “Wannabe” out of her ass and rap it effortlessly, but here she is, smelling like cigarettes and Axe and shampoo and sunshine, even though it’s still mostly dark and cold outside, like she somehow soaked up an infinite amount of sun over the course of her life just by being such a bright person, like the sun _wants_ to give her everything, even amid the chill of cloudy mornings. She’s like a goddamned solar panel. Harry is obsessed with a human solar panel. 

The song ends, and Louis collapses, bent over the window, her arms loose and in Harry’s lap while she hiccups with laughter. Harry doesn’t know what to do, so she looks frantically to Leanne, who’s shaking her head but smiling all the same as Nyla reaches in and ruffles her hair. She turns down the music and sighs, “Okay, okay, that’s enough for now...glad you all got to start the day with such a bang.” 

“Better than studying, right?” Harry manages to croak, thighs tingling as Louis’s hands brush over them lightly. It’s too much, she’s gonna explode soon, but thankfully Louis quits, moving back to fold her forearms to pillow her head in the window frame. 

“Harry Styles,” Louis says once she catches her breath, tilting her eyes to look at Harry, her face split with a smile. Harry’s stomach drops _hard_. She can’t remember ever having told Louis her last name ,and it sounds so sexy and surreal in her voice, this impossible thing. “You have a _great_ singing voice...you should try out for theater,” Louis tells her, eyes twinkling from beneath the soft wing of her hair, which is poking out from under her newly askew beanie. So many fly-away strands, and Harry carefully sits on her hands to avoid the temptation of touching them. 

Harry blinks, trying to process what she’s saying. “My _voice?!_ I mean…this is nothing, this is just the Spice Girls, like, I really can _actually_ sing,” she admits because, well. Those years of evenings spent alone singing duets with Gemma into her hairbrush while they waited for their mom to get home from the night shift paid off. 

“See? All the more reason to join!” Louis crows, eyes wide, blue, infinite. “You’re talented.” 

Harry is so dry-mouthed that she can’t talk, so she just nods awkwardly, ignoring how the tops of her ears are burning. 

“Aw, Tommo, don’t bully the poor transfer into joining that cult of yours,” Nyla pouts from Leanne’s window. “She has long legs so she should try out for track instead. You know, if she wants to sacrifice her after-school time for something _worthwhile.”_

Louis’s hands fly to her chest as she lets out a high-pitched, affronted gasp. “S’not a _cult_ , not like organized fucking sports is a cult, you _dyke_ ,” Louis snaps playfully, and Nyla gasps, tossing her soccer ball over the hood of Leanne’s car in mock offense, aiming for Louis. She darts away easily, so flighty and delicate, ugh, _a solar panel,_ truly. 

Harry, who hasn’t quite recovered from the shock of hearing the word _dyke_ thrown around so mindlessly _,_ remains silent and floored. Does this mean that Nyla’s gay, too? Or is Louis so gay that she just calls other girls dykes? Harry’s contemplating exactly what this all might mean while Leanne acts on her ritual habit of being _selectively_ politically correct. “Hey, that is a _slur..._ and if you guys are gonna fuck around, get away from the family car!” Leanne yells, hugging her steering wheel tightly. “My parents will not appreciate dents.” 

“Awwww, Leanne and her car, true love,” Louis singsongs, plucking the soccer ball off the ground before it rolls away. “And are you _truly_ going to get on _my_ case for saying dyke?” She raises her eyebrows incredulously as she tucks the soccer ball under her arm, casting her gaze back at Harry, who’s still reeling from having been serenaded, the casual use of the word in question, and the knowledge that Louis is in _theater,_ which is somehow surprising _._ She thought Louis’s playful rivalry with Nyla wasn’t because they were on opposite sides of some weird, artificial but still very real Arts vs. Sports war at St. Catherine’s, she thought it was because they were on different _teams_ or something. She wrongly assumed that Louis was into sports because she just seems so _athletic,_ always skating or kicking around a ball or shooting baskets in the shitty, net-less hoop at the end of the parking lot, gorgeous, toned biceps flickering. It’s so exciting to think that she’s also secretly _artistic,_ too, that she and Harry’s preferred social circles might cross over more than she originally thought.

“Not cool, Leanne,” Nyla _tsks,_ elbow-deep in the car so that she can again mess up Leanne’s already woefully messed up hair. Leanne bats her off, opening her mouth to say something, but Louis cuts her off, leaning into Harry’s space, making her breath catch. 

_“Really_ , though, Harry...you can sing? Have you ever acted before? Done choir?” she asks, and her voice comes out softer than usual, less caustic and performative than her constant half-shout. She’s initiating a private conversation, just between her and Harry, and Harry can tell it’s meant for just them because Nyla and Leanne are chatting, too, separately and through the other window. Her stomach swoops. 

“I was in a band,” Harry explains, realizing that this is the first _real_ one-on-one conversation she’s had with Louis since they met. “But it was, like, a terrible, awful church band...and I didn’t even go to church, it was my friend’s church, and he needed someone to sing once, so I did it, and then I kept doing it because the usual singer was a flake, I guess. Anyway, I was the only girl, and the rest of the band all had crushes on me, which was terrible. Besides that, I, like…pretended to strum an acoustic guitar while I sang Fleetwood Mac covers for my parents? And my sister and I loved to record ourselves singing “Bohemian Rhapsody”? When I wasn’t singing, like, ‘This Little Light of Mine’to Sunday schoolers, anyway. And that’s my sordid musical history,” she tries to keep her voice even, but it’s hard, Louis’s eyes are very blue and she’s listening too _attentively,_ head cocked like a cat, the corners of her mouth twitching like she’s trying not to smile too big. 

When Harry finishes, Louis cracks up, and that feels so good, making her laugh, seeing her eyes bunch up at the corners and her teeth flash, her pretty lips pulled back in a face-splitting grin. “‘This Little Light of Mine’! Classic! Believe it or not, that’s more experience than half the people who audition, so you’d already be ahead of the game.” 

“I dunno,” Harry shrugs. “I like to sing, I like to perform, but I’ve never acted _ever,_ and I can’t…I don’t think I’d be very good at it. Like, memorizing lines and stuff? I’d be shit at that.” 

“How do you know if you haven’t tried!?” Louis asks, reaching out and squeezing Harry’s forearm, and, _fuck,_ Harry has to keep herself from scrambling, from grabbing Louis back in any number of awkward, tangled configurations because she has no fucking control. “My friend Perrie had only done school plays, didn’t sing until she tried out for theater, and now she’s, like, absolutely incredible, she’ll be the fall production’s lead, probably, all because she’s an amazing singer. Absolute _fire,_ and she wouldn’t have even known. Maybe you’re brilliant...maybe you’re, like, the next Macbeth,” Louis offers, shrugging at Harry. 

Harry watches her closely, looking for indications in her voice or body language to suggest that she’s secretly in love with Perrie Edwards as she brings her up. Louis seems uninvested enough, though, even as she’s complimenting her. Harry doesn’t mean to, but she allows a tiny bubble of wild, foolish hope to swell in her chest. “I dunno,” she grins up at Louis, flirting even though she’s already told herself thousands of times that she shouldn’t waste time or energy flirting with Louis Tomlinson, a girl who is worlds out of her league, a girl who is a living, breathing solar panel. Like, why flirt with someone that the _sun_ is in love with, Christ, Harry can’t compete with the sun. But here she is, doing it even though she knows she shouldn't, doing it even though she doesn’t know _how_. “I don’t really see myself as a Shakespearean actor, but, like, if you do _Legally Blonde_? I can bend and snap. Probably.” 

Louis cracks up again. “You’ll have to cage-fight Perrie for that part. She _is_ Elle Woods, like, in actual real life, so there’s that, plus, she’s naturally blonde, and you’d have to wear a wig,” Louis says, reaching out and threading her hand easily through Harry’s messy mop of dark, unruly curls. _Then, s_ he makes a fist and tugs, and Harry practically _whites out,_ mind turning to static, thighs clenching together as a dark, terrible heat converges in her gut. She can’t speak or breathe, all she can do is hope that she doesn’t actually go into cardiac arrest and pray that Louis lets her go before she does something truly embarrassing, like whimper. 

Thank _god_ , it’s only a moment. Louis’s fingers slide from her hair and curl neatly around the rolled down window, as if they had never been there at all. Harry’s heart tries to beat its way through her chest, but she manages to get out, “Well, I could be, like…Oliver or something. I have the weird English boy bowl-cut thing going on for me.” 

Louis snorts. “See? You’re obviously _meant_ for the stage! Soooooo, if you want an after-school commitment that’ll look good on those college applications, _and_ if you wanna hang out with easily the coolest kids on campus,” she adds, saying the last bit deliberately loudly enough for Nyla and Leanne to hear her and whip their heads around to glare. “I highly suggest you audition. I’m the theater teacher’s right-hand woman, so you’d most definitely get in. And Nyla, don’t you _dare_ make a thespian/lesbian joke, or I swear to god, I will _pummel_ you.”

“And you’d _lose_ because theater makes muscles weak, that’s just a scientifically proven fact,” Nyla says smugly, flexing her impressive arm while Leanne rolls her eyes. Harry, inevitably, considers Nyla’s biceps for a moment before her gaze sweeps back to Louis’s arm, which she can’t even _see_ because she’s wearing a sweatshirt, but still. She’s very pathetic. Her scalp is tingling from having her hair pulled. _Her hair pulled,_ honestly _._

“Shit, you guys, it’s _nearly_ 8, we actually have to get to class, as fun as all that was” Leanne sighs as she checks her phone, making a pained face. 

“Ugh, Leanne always killing the mood,” Louis groans, shouldering her backpack and pushing off the side of the car, which she had been using to support her weight. It’s a single, graceful, easy motion, and Harry wonders if there’s anything she does that doesn’t look like _dancing,_ like fucking. She wets her lips with her tongue, positively exhausted with how badly she _wants_ something she can’t have. “See ya, Harry...at auditions, okay?” she says as she leaves, pointing to shoot at Harry with both index fingers like she’s in a western or something. 

“Maybe,” Harry croaks, waving.

She and Leanne gather their books and start up the hill shortly after, and as soon as Harry is sure that they’re out of earshot, she clears her throat, chest full of butterflies. “Why didn’t you tell me that Louis was in theater?” 

“I didn’t know you’d care?” Leanne shrugs, looking at Harry critically with a raised eyebrow. “Is that something you’re into? I thought you were, like, the academic decathlon type...figured you were gonna take the honors route,” she says, her voice _excited_ , as if studying with the intent of joining the athletic decathlon is the most fun a girl can have without getting naked, and Harry snorts because Leanne is such a nerd, she’s so adorably clueless, and she doesn't know Harry _at all._

_I don’t care about theater, I care about Louis,_ she imagines saying, just to see the wide-eyed, total lack of comprehension that would spread across Leanne’s face slowly, like molasses. Instead, Harry bites her lips, wrinkling her nose to hide a smile. “I mean, I get good grades and all, but, like, I also enjoy singing? Could be fun...and Louis’s right, extracurriculars look good on applications.” 

Leanne sighs dramatically. “If you want to join a team or a club and have it eat up all your study time, _sure,_ be my guest, but I suggest waiting until next semester at least to think about that type of stuff. Get your bearings on a new campus, figure out your schedule, that kind of thing.” 

“Maybe,” Harry says, but she’s already made up her mind. She doesn’t have any classes with Louis because they’re in different years, so she has no natural, organic way to hang out with her or get to know her better. Joining theater would fill that void, bring them closer without Harry having to go out of her way or act more obviously infatuated than she already is. She swallows thickly, jamming her hands into her pockets. “Just in case, can I, like…do you have Louis’s cell number? So I can ask her about, um, balancing theater with school work?” 

“Sure,” Leanne sighs, sending her the contact after she lets out another massive, agonized-sounding sigh. “Really, though, take everything she says with a grain of salt. It’s not like she _prioritizes_ her grades or anything. She might not be the most _objective_ source of information.” 

“I will take that _all_ into consideration, Leanne, thanks,” Harry answers, splaying a hand over her chest to convey her absolute sincerity, how _very seriously_ she takes study time. Her phone buzzes as Leanne’s text arrives, and her heart leaps up into her throat because she has Louis’s _number_ now, her number and a reason to text her, to _talk_ to her. 

She peels off from Leanne and heads to her first class, cheeks aching with the exertion of fighting such a huge, reckless smile. She’s not getting hopeful, not really. She’s just... _excited_. It’s different, she tells herself, plopping into a desk and hiding her face in her arms so that she can grin freely, even if for just a moment. 

—-

At home later that night, as she lies in bed worrying her sheets in her hands, Harry decides to text Louis. She was _going_ to be chill about it, maybe wait a few days so that she wouldn’t seem desperate or over eager, but she’s pretty sure she won’t actually sleep tonight if she doesn’t just _do it._ She sighs deeply, grabbing her phone off her bedside table and bringing up Louis’s contact (Leanne put it in her phone as Olivia Tomlinson (Louis) because she’s a fucking nerd), heart thudding in her throat. _hey louis, it’s harry, Leanne’s carpool! i got ur number from her i hope that’s ok. i wanted to ask you when auditions for theater are and if u have any pointers :)_

She hits send and immediately plummets into an anxiety spiral at having included a smiley, which seems too forward and too childish all at once. What if Louis _hates_ smileys? What if she’s the type who capitalizes everything and uses perfect punctuation in her texts and thinks emojis are the downfall of civilization as we know it? Harry doesn’t _think so,_ Louis doesn’t seem like that, but she _could be_ ;Harry doesn’t actually know anything about Louis, as they aren’t truly _friends._ Not yet, anyway. That’s why she’s doing this, why she’s curled up in her bed willfully staring at her old Miley Cyrus poster papered to her ceiling instead of checking her phone obsessively. 

She hasn’t actively liked Miley since she was a passionate Hannah Montana aficionado in elementary school, but she likes to keep the poster there, to ground herself. The familiarity of her own ceiling, reminding her of so many late-night phone calls with her friends, time spent twisting the cord around her finger until her family got a portable landline, Miley watching benevolently while she faked liking boys or complained about her mean fourth-grade teacher or cried when her best friend moved away two years ago and left her all alone. Miley watching silently while she texts a girl and waits for a reply, her heart in her throat. Miley’s seen it all. 

Her phone buzzes, and her stomach swoops dramatically, hands nearly slick with sweat. It’s totally ridiculous how nervous she is to read just a _text_ from Louis, but this isn’t the same as seeing her unexpectedly in the halls, this is _reaching out,_ putting herself on the line, initiating contact. It somehow seems like more of a risk, and she splays a hand over her face so that she can peer at whatever Louis has said from between the safe slats of her fingers. 

_!!!!!!!!!!!!!!_ is the first text, followed by, _omg r u gonna audition??!! edyyyyyayahgaahyyy!!!!!! :):):)_

Definitely not the perfect-punctuation, emoji-hating type, then. Harry’s relieved, but only kind of, because her stomach is in knots, and Louis is….excited? She did something to _excite_ Louis? It seems unfathomable, a dream, so she looks up at Miley to confirm that this is indeed her room, her actual, real life. _yah i think so,_ she texts back, and immediately Louis replies. 

_siiiiiicckkkk :) :)_ Harry reads it seven times, thrilled that she can actually imagine it in Louis’s voice, the soft-over-hard of it, broken glass wrapped in velvet. She sighs, idly pushing a hand up her own tattered cotton sleep shirt to feel the force of her pulse pounding, her skin dewy with nerve-sweat. Louis texts again, and she can actually _feel_ her heart leap under the weight of her hand. _as for pointers, i dont think u need them? i mean just sing, you’ll get in on your voice alone. there’s sort of a seniority thing with casting so you’ll probs get a smaller part/chorus part in the fall production. but my guess is by spring you’ll already be a fave :))) teacher loves me so she’ll love you too_

Harry might clutch her phone to her chest and kick the air a little bit. It’s not her fault. 

_that’s cool, i don;t want a big part yet anyway. and u think so? you’ll vouch for me?_ she texts back after some deliberation, pretty sure that whatever she’s doing counts as flirting. At least she thinks it does. Plenty of boys have told her that she’s a tease, but only because she gives good eye contact and isn’t afraid of casual physical touch, and boys like to make assumptions based on that. She’s never _really_ flirted before, never really figured out how to say or do things with the intent of _actually_ showing interest. Especially with girls, who are confusing. You can hold hands with girls, play with their hair and kiss their cheeks and serenade them with Spice Girls songs, and it doesn’t necessarily mean anything, so how do you flirt, when flirting is considered _normal?_

_of course,_ Louis texts back, and the butterflies in Harry’s body are so fucking enormous that they actually feel more like pterodactyls. She inhales raggedly, tucking her phone up into her shirt and pressing it to her bare skin. When it vibrates again, she feels it resound through her ribs, into her gut, and she squeezes her thighs together in response. _i’m stoked i have ur number now, this means i can officially send you my carefully hand selected memes. also what emoji do u want by ur name in my contacts? if you say u don’t care its gonna be the poop or the eggplant one just fyi,_ Louis sends, and Harry snorts, laughing alone in her bedroom, no one but Miley around to hear. 

_it does not surprise me that you send people memes,_ Harry sends, legs flexing rhythmically and involuntarily now, her boxer shorts jammed up between her thighs enough that she can feel the pressure of them against her, good and tight and hot. And if she gets turned on by texting Louis about _memes,_ she’s legitimately concerned for what would happen to her if they were actually _friends,_ close enough friends that Louis started draping herself all over Harry like she does with everyone else. Harry might burst into flames. It doesn’t seem too far-fetched to worry about it. 

_focus harold. i need an emoji,_ Louis texts back. 

Harry’s stupid and self-indulgent and wants lots of things that she can’t have. She’s getting wet from a nonsexual text conversation, she feels drunk and dizzy, and Miley’s staring at her from the ceiling with her usual blank, vapid gaze of non-judgemental indifference, and it makes her stupidly brave. _I like hearts,_ she tells Louis, because she would very much like to be in Louis’s phone with a heart beside her name. 

_which ones? there are a gazillion. veronica is the black one ofc because she’s goth af but all the other ones are fair game i think_

_any of them! all of them. ill let you choose_

_all of them is too many, people r gonna think we’re dating lmao. i did the frog and the green heart because u make frog faces and have green eyes. it will differentiate you from all the other harolds in my phone,_ Louis texts back, and Harry squawks indignantly, astounded that Louis mentioned dating, even theoretically. 

_frog faces??!!_ she asks, affronted, and she can almost _hear_ Louis laugh in response. 

_lol yesssss frog faces. don't worry it's charming,_ she sends, and Harry doesn't have _words_ for how fast and hard her stomach plummets, it _hurts_ and leaves her feeling breathless, gasping. Louis… _thinks her frog faces are charming?_ If she remembered how to move, she might kick the air again, but she’s a little paralyzed, flat on her back, legs locked up. 

_Thank you lol,_ she manages to text back, thumbs clumsy. She’s half-planning a proper conversation starter, something like, _what’s keeping you up so late? memorizing lines? procrastinating homework?_ when Louis beats her to the punch. 

_auditions are on Thursday at 3:30 in the auditorium btw. you’ll sing, do a short monologue, and then ms richards (who is amazing and CRAZY and not at all scary so don’t worry) will put u in a group and you’ll learn to perform like 30 seconds of super easy choreography. there are honestly only four girls in the whole theater program who can actually dance and the rest of us are absolutely horrible so if you’re horrible too you will only be in good company lmao_

Harry chews her lip, imagining the way that Louis moves, sharp and deliberate and _easy,_ like her sense of rhythm isn’t learned but inherent, something she got from the earth, the sun. _I don’t believe you’re one of the bad dancers,_ Harry sends, feeling vulnerable as soon as she does it. 

_you should rethink that one lol. i’m a terrible dancer. very white girl,_ Louis sends back, followed by a string of sleepy emojis. _i gotta crash, smoked a bowl a little while ago and now my eyes are droopy. lemme know if u need anymore guidance!!!! and GOOD LUCK AT AUDITIONS I’LL SEE U THURSS!!!!:)))))_

Harry texts back a quick, _thanks! g’night <3, _before decidedly putting her phone on airplane mode and plugging it in so she doesn’t have to worry about any more potential texts from Louis that may or may not address the fucking _heart_ she tacked on to the end of her reply, like a truly desperate and embarrassing person. She curls up in bed, arms wrapped around herself as she flicks her gaze to Miley one last time before shutting off the lights. _Don’t get your hopes up about anything,_ she tells herself, blinking in the darkness. 

She might nod off with a smile on her face. If it’s a hopeful smile, only Miley knows. 

CHAPTER 3

Harry sings “Isn't She Lovely”for her audition, and Ms. Richards stops her in the middle of it, waving her ring-bedazzled hands in the air madly, John Lennon-style glasses flashing under the stage lights. She looks kind of like the teacher in _The Magic School Bus_ , only with salt-and-pepper hair instead of red. Still, she’s amazingly eccentric and _exactly_ what Harry would conjure up in her mind if she had to imagine the perfect photo for the dictionary definition of _zany drama teacher._ Harry already kind of loves her. 

“Enough, you’re in,” Ms. Richards says, nodding curtly, rings clicking together. “Let’s hope you can dance...god knows we need _that.”_

Harry can’t dance, but as Louis had assured her, no one seems to care. She’s officially in theater, which means she’ll be spending two and a half hours after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays, two and a half hours in Louis Tomlinson’s proximity. She’s _beside herself._ Leanne gives her a hard time about it initially, complaining, _you're going to have to find someone else to drive you home on those days because I’m not waiting around,_ but then changes her tune by the end of the week, deciding that she could actually really use that time to visit office hours and study in the library, so Harry’s new schedule is thus solidified. 

Her social circle sort of shifts once she’s in theater, and she’s not entirely sure if she’s stoked about that or not. Save for Louis, the theater kids are…well, they’re just a lot. A lot of everything. Louis’s loud and brilliant and dominates every conversation, which is wonderful when she's around silent, aloof girls like Veronica, but it looks completely different when she’s surrounded by _other_ loud, brilliant girls who also try to dominate every conversation. Sitting with the theater kids at lunch makes Harry realize with total conviction that she might like to sing, but she’s _not_ a theater kid. 

They’re just so _noisy,_ already shouting over each other and combating for an imaginary spotlight, belting the entire soundtrack of _Rent_ together, and blowing Harry’s eardrums out every lunch period. She likes a good sing-along as much as the next girl, but it’s different when everyone’s singing _over_ each other, especially when it’s _showtunes._

The seniors, at least, are mostly cool. There’s Louis, of course, and Perrie, who wears so much highlighter that she always looks glorious and dewy, like a glazed donut. She’s even sweeter than she is shiny, routinely checking in with Harry and trying to talk to her about things without roping her into heated discussions over whether _Spring Awakening_ is more or less underrated than _Whistle Down the Wind_ (irrelevant answer, as no one but Louis has even _heard_ of _Whistle Down the Wind_ , let alone feels a fraction as passionate about it as she does). Harry still feels distantly threatened by Perrie, but it’s easier to deal with now that she knows she’s actually really _nice. S_ he has a boyfriend, too, which means Louis might be unrequitedly in love with her or something, but at least they aren’t _girlfriends._

Then there’s Dinah, who’s intimidatingly gorgeous and apparently dating a college guy who's studying to be a music producer and picks her up from school in a fucking _Lamborghini._ She wears denim-over-denim on the weekends and somehow still looks good in it, which seems fake, but isn’t (Harry’s seen pictures). There’s Normandi, arguably the best dancer in the entire class, who refuses to call Harry anything except Styles and wears aviators at lunch and complains about having a perpetual hangover, even though she’s always so put together that she makes the _uniform_ seem sexy. The seniors are cool, for the most part, but everyone else seems like they’re engaged in a never-ending bloodsport to win their approval. Harry doesn’t feel like she has the time, energy, or fucking _loud-ass personality_ for that, so she spends her lunch periods with the theater kids making sly jokes and stupid puns with Perrie and Normandi, watching Louis without trying to seem like she’s watching Louis. Playing it cool, neutral. Or at least she hopes she is. 

She thinks that if she sits with them long enough, if she feigns nonchalance long enough, the thrill and anxiety that come along with sharing space with Louis will somehow dissipate, and she’ll figure out how to be genuinely _chill_ around her. If only Louis could just become another cute girl (but not _distractingly cute_ ) _,_ Harry could hang out around her without the air catching in her throat or her stomach plummeting every time they meet eyes. 

Unfortunately, this development has yet to come. And it’s not as if Louis is on some type of inhuman pedestal anymore, where Harry unfairly views her as this sexy high school lesbian goddess that she can’t formulate coherent sentences around. Louis is _real_ now, a _real_ girl who gets more and more human with each passing day, as one does when you spend time with them in an unglamorous setting, like lunch period. Still _,_ seeing Louis flawed and up close doesn’t help Harry’s massive crush on her. It only makes it _worse._

Now Harry knows that Louis has insomnia, that she sometimes spends whole nights up and comes to school the next day with puffy bags under her eyes and her hood up, sighing a lot and drinking her black tea. ( _Coffee is literally the devil’s piss,_ she said once, wrinkling her nose, _maybe the caffeine is stronger or whatever but you could not pay me to drink a coffee drink that’s not all sugar and milk, sorry._ )She gets soft and quiet on these days, a far cry from her usual mania, sometimes knocking out on her backpack during rehearsal, head pillowed over her arms until Ms. Richards wakes her up, nudging her while she’s snoring soft and cute and wheezy. 

Harry also knows that Louis _hates_ pineapple on pizza but loves jalapeños; in fact, she kind of has a junk food _problem_ and buys two orders of large fries from the lunch truck every Thursday and shares them with everyone, generously and without resentment. Harry learns that her favorite band is Brand New and her first concert was Green Day when she was eleven; she likes pop punk but wishes there were more female vocalists, she has a picture of the hard-looking mohawked singer of the Distillers in her locker, but when Harry asks her if she thinks she’s hot, Louis shrugs and says, _absolutely, but in a I wanna be her more than an I wanna date her way_. Apparently her actual biggest celebrity crush is Gwen Stefani ( _No Doubt era, like, late nineties with the braces and pink hair? Prime Gwen,_ she explains with a dreamy look in her eye). Harry considers for a moment what she might look like with dyed pink hair but then realizes that everyone would think she was copying Perrie and remembers that Louis probably _likes_ Perrie, why wouldn’t she, why wouldn’t _anyone?_ Plus, styling oneself after your crush’s celebrity crush is one of the most embarrassing things you can do, especially when Perrie _already looks like Gwen,_ kind of, as much as a high schooler can, but _still._

Harry learns that Louis has _two_ sets of twin baby brothers, a huge family, and a saint of a mom who drives them all around to their various chess lessons and sports practices in a giant hunter-green van. Harry learns that Louis played Peter Pan in a production of _Finding Neverland_ last spring, the most fitting thing she’s ever heard, probably. Harry learns that Louis has an ex-friend who graduated last year, a girl who apparently spread homophobic rumors about her at another local, rival all-girls’ school. Louis’s eyes get dark and hurt when she mentions it, even though she’s making a joke, brushes it off with, _we don’t speak her name anymore, really, Nicky who?!_

They hang out, and Louis gets more and more human, but Harry’s butterflies, her wild thrill, her _wonder…_ they never go away. It’s just that _now_ instead of Harry only knowing that Louis is charming and funny and charismatic and _mysterious,_ she’s also kind and complex, family-oriented, talented, generous, sensitive, a good listener. She’s even _more_ attractive now that Harry knows her, and Harry is royally, dangerously _fucked._

It doesn’t help that Louis flirts with _everyone._ Harry included. Harry _especially,_ in fact, probably because Harry will go along with anything she says and keep the charade up until Louis tires of it, which is probably a nice novelty since Louis’s other friends seem to get fed up or grossed out and shove her off, limited patience for her endless pranks. One of her favorite lunchtime games is reenacting scenes from various musicals but making them gay. Veronica, who is neither gay nor in theater (but seems to have an honorary place among the theater girls, likely because she’s Louis’s best friend, unreasonably pretty, and a little terrifying all of which result in no one wanting to mess with her), ends up being her most common partner in crime. 

Until Harry, anyway. Harry, who’s eager to be part of anything that Louis Tomlinson is doing, regularly jumps at the opportunity to star opposite her, and since she’s both sort of (really?) gay _and_ in theater _and_ hopelessly infatuated, Harry makes for a much more enthusiastic costar than Veronica. This seems to delight Louis, which just further encourages Harry, so together they make an unstoppable team of subversive musical adaption writers. It’s probably the world’s most obnoxiously high-brow game of gay chicken, and Harry _lives for it,_ lives to be the Cosette to Louis’s Marius (never mind the fact that she’s truly the pining lovelorn Eponine in reality), the Mimi to Louis’s Roger, the Elphaba to her Fiyero, the Juliet to her fair Romeo (Louis even _looks_ like a femme version of the already femme young Leo DiCaprio, it isn’t _fair_ ) _._ Harry goes hard in every role, heart pounding out of her chest as she flings herself into Louis’s arms, as she spins her neatly and dips her back and begs her not to fight in the Revolution because what could be more important than love?! 

They clutch at each other and climb on each other, and it’s ridiculous and campy and over the top, and Harry _knows_ that it doesn’t mean anything when Louis cups her face and plants huge smacking kisses to her cheeks and screams, “Baby, I’m born to be bad!” in an ear-splitting vibrato, but it doesn’t change the fact that it absolutely _devastates her,_ that she has to sneak off to the bathroom after lunch to take deep breaths and drink water from the sink and fucking _clean herself up_ so there’s not a fucking _mess in her underwear_ , like, when did she turn into such an animal!? She should _not_ get so compromised by the mere act of joke-singing “Light My Candle”with Louis, especially when she doesn’t even particularly like _Rent_. It’s absurd, it’s embarrassing, but she’s also tragically jealous when Louis duets with anyone else, so she supposes it’s a fate she’s doomed to perform. 

The thing is, whatever happens at lunch or in theater is a _performance._ It has an audience that Louis’s most definitely invested in shocking or entertaining; Harry’s merely a prop. They’re _performing,_ and Harry’s certain that none of it would be happening if they were alone. Like, Louis wouldn’t grab her by her blazer and pull her close and warble _a heart full of love, no fears no regrets!_ an inch from her faceif Perrie wasn’t there to snort into her soda, if Normandi wasn’t there to roll her eyes, if all the underclassmen weren't there to burst into riotous laughter. 

It _feels_ charged when they mess around together, it really does, but Harry is generally charged around Louis, so she can’t tell if this is one-sided, if she's projecting electricity onto Louis because she’s generating so _much_ of it that there’s more than enough to go around, to bathe the both of them in her frenetic, wanting light. Still, sometimes their eyes meet with a crackling spark and Harry’s blood ices over and Louis smirks in that warm, knowing way that feels like she’s _winking_ with her mouth or something, and it all seems possible. Any number of wild fantasies _could_ happen: Louis _could_ have a motorcycle, Harry _could_ look good on the back of it. It feels like it’s _more_ than a performance, just for a second, and with a heart full of love, Harry will bite the inside of her cheek to keep her smile from dimpling, and wonder. 

Louis always drops her, shoves her away or spins away to go launch onto Leigh-Ann or twirl a finger into the pink bits of Perrie’s hair, flighty and impossible as she dances from one person to the next, Peter Pan, fairy dust. It’s not like she’s manipulative or anything, she’s just _a lot,_ she’s all over the place, she’s pure energy. Not even a solar panel, Harry’s realizing, but a whole entire solar flare. 

Harry has made _friends_ with Louis, at least that’s what she thinks they are, yet she can’t help but wonder if she’s just one of many girls, all caught up in Louis’s charm, not special or different or close or worth remembering at all, really. She wonders if Louis forgets about her when she’s at home and there’s no audience to make laugh, if Harry’s someone she would even list among her friends, or if she’s just another theater girl to sing to, play with. Harry thinks she needs to get Louis _alone_ , away from the group, away from school, even, to get a true read on their dynamic. Otherwise, she can’t tell what’s theater, what’s smoke, what’s mirror.

It’s not like she’s brave enough to even do that though, not really. Getting someone as social as Louis alone seems like a Herculean task, and Harry’s weak and shy and weird where Louis is concerned, so it’ll likely never happen. Not anytime soon, at least. In the meantime, she’s stuck doing vaudeville with her at lunch, wistfully and somewhat deprecatingly thinking, _anywhere, where she is, if she asked, I’d be hers._

_—-_

Harry’s walking down to the senior parking lot after last period on Wednesday when she gets a text from Leanne. _so sorry H, gonna be about a half hour late, i need to hit mr sanchezs office hours and there’s a line :( if you wanna hang out ill still take u home, or do u want me to call u an uber??? lemme know!_

Harry pushes her fringe out of her eyes, half-heartedly tucking it behind her ear where it refuses to stay, springing back across her face because it’s curly and unruly, and that’s just the way it is. _i’ll wait in the parking lot and do hw, no worries! see u soon and take ur time,_ she texts back, wandering across the lot and pocketing her phone before she drops her backpack in the shade next to Leanne’s car and sits down next to it, picking absentmindedly at a loose string on one of her knee-socks. She pulls out her bio binder and textbook, even though she doubts she’ll actually get any work done. She’s busy thumbing through the reproductive system chapter and wrinkling her nose at the penis diagrams when she hears Louis’s musical laugh cut across the lot, reverberating off concrete. She pretends not to hear, chewing the inside of her cheek, knowing full well that it’s already hopeless. 

It’s impossible to keep her eyes trained on penis diagrams when she can see Louis’s beat-up (total uniform violation _)_ Vans drawing closer and closer, right beside Veronica’s patent leather Mary Janes. Her face gets hotter and hotter, and she grinds her teeth harder and harder, thinking in a panicked jumble, _she’s not coming over here, is she?!_ until Louis’s standing right in front of her. She nudges Harry’s knee with her toe, and says, “Hello there, young Hazza. Where’s Payno?” 

Harry, who resents being called _young,_ glares up at Louis, pretending to be surprised to see her. “Office hours,” she explains. “Sanchez, so she’s gonna be there forever, which means I’m gonna be _here_ forever. Terrible fate, seeing as I have so many places to be, things to do,” she shrugs, smiling cheekily. 

Veronica cracks her gum, unimpressed. “You don’t have a car key?” 

“Not my car,” Harry mumbles. Louis sits down next to her then, and she forgets how to talk. Sitting with the theater kids is different than sitting in the senior parking lot beside Louis, almost alone. Even when Louis climbs over everyone else to sing “It Takes a Woman”in Harry’s face, it doesn’t feel like it does _now,_ with her _choosing_ to sit beside her, without the audience, without the song. They’re just…hanging. 

Veronica props herself up against Leanne’s car, and Louis tugs off her hoodie, balls it up, leans back, and uses it as a pillow against the cement. “Wanna smoke with us?” she asks nonchalantly, and Harry has to try very, very hard to keep her cheering _internal._

_“_ Sure,” she says, before remembering that she _doesn’t actually smoke._ “Oh, except…I don’t really smoke. Cigarettes, I mean...only weed.” 

Veronica snorts indignantly, and Louis cracks up. “Smart...cigarettes are a nasty fucking habit, right, Veronica?” Then she turns to Harry, rubbing absently at the little constellation of freckles on her cheek. “S’her fault I smoke, I was just an innocent freshman when she corrupted me, made me smoke a menthol outside Chain Reaction in Anaheim...I wanted to seem cool, so I did. Now here I am, slowly filling my lungs with tar, s’dreadful. Thanks, oh, best friend of mine,” she winks at Veronica, kicking at her shin. “I can see up your skirt from here, by the way. Cute polka dot undies.” 

Veronica flips her off. “Why are you looking?” 

“Dunno, why aren’t you offering to smoke Harry out?” she grins brilliantly. 

“Because I only share my weed with _you!_ No offense, Harry.” 

“None taken, no need to waste your weed on me, s’fine, really,” Harry says hastily, waving her hands in the air. “But I appreciate the thought, Lou.” 

Louis sighs dramatically, flinging her arm over her eyes. Now that she’s taken her sweatshirt off, Harry notices that she’s wearing a tattered tank-top instead of the uniform oxford, notices the soft, matted-down hair in her underarms. It’s so sexy and auburn, and Harry wants to _die_ as she looks at it, totally incapable of stopping herself, wanting so badly to nuzzle up into Louis’s pits and lick, to taste her sweat, to push her down into the pavement and feel the heat of her body burning into her. She blushes because Louis has no _idea_ of the things she thinks about her, all the _filthy_ things. She would probably be so weirded out and mortified to know that Harry fantasizes about licking her armpits. Like, _fuck._ Harry looks away, hoping Veronica didn’t notice. 

“Well, _I_ don’t mind sharing, Harold...hold on a minute, lemme go get my piece,” Louis says, sitting up and dusting grit off her back. She reaches for Veronica, who pulls her up to her feet, the lenses of her cat-eye glasses reflecting in the sunlight. 

“You really don’t have to,” Harry calls after her, but Louis’s already jogging over to her car, throwing open the passenger door, and rummaging around in the glove compartment. As she bends over, her skirt rides up, bottom hem fluttering in the breeze, and Harry can see her bike shorts underneath, pilling lycra probably warm and sweat-damp between Louis’s thighs. Just thinking about it makes Harry dizzy, so she tries to stop. 

“Aha!” Louis crows, brandishing a fancy blown-glass pipe and a tiny film canister. “This might be old and shitty, but shitty weed is weed all the same, right?” 

Harry shrugs, grinning as Louis comes back, collapsing onto the concrete, legs loosely crossed. “Free weed is good weed in my book,” Harry says, and Louis fishes a lighter out of her wadded-up hoodie, brow furrowed. 

“Oh, is it free?” she jokes, waggling her eyebrows. “What if I request payment? In the form of…I dunno, waking me up next time I crash in theater so Ms. Richards doesn’t have to see me being anything less than a stellar student?” 

Harry can think of any number of things she would like to pay Louis with, but she just nods, watching closely as Louis packs a bowl and lights it with deft fingers. The smoke is dusty and stale, more like sage than weed, really, but Harry doesn’t care. All she wants is to press her mouth to the same glass that Louis’s sucking from right now, eyelids fluttering, cheeks hollowed out and lovely. Harry sighs, eyes watering as Louis exhales. 

Just then, Leanne shows up, bustling across the parking lot with her eyes narrowed and her hair coming down from her messy bun. It’s Veronica who announces her presence, flipping her dark curls over her shoulder and pushing off Leanne’s car to greet her. “Louis’s getting your carpool high,” she announces. “How were Sanchez’s office hours?” 

“Payno!” Louis shouts, before dissolving into wheezing coughs. 

Leanne ignores her and pops the trunk to throw her backpack in, so flustered that she’s flushed. “Absolutely _insane_ , oh, my god, they were so busy, I had to _bribe_ Tina Kinnard to let me go ahead of her by letting her copy my physics homework, which you know I absolutely _hate_ doing. Why does it smell like _awful weed?_ S’like burnt toast out here,” she grumbles, slamming the trunk. “C’mon, Harry, I wanna beat traffic, ugh, what an afternoon.” 

“Geez, way to suck all the fun out of a Wednesday,” Louis pouts, standing unsteadily and letting out another wracking cough. “Harry, I suppose I’ll allow your killjoy carpool to whisk you away—”

“Hey!” Leanne yelps, only acknowledging Louis now that she’s insulted her. “I am _not_ a killjoy, Sanchez’s office hours and letting people _cheat_ are, though.” 

“Whatever you say, killjoy,” Louis shrugs, threading her arm through Veronica’s elbow. “You owe me another smoking session, Harold,” she says then, pointing at Harry and narrowing her eyes. “Or _else.”_

_“_ You got it,” Harry calls back, reluctantly getting into the car. She has _never_ been so annoyed by Leanne and her study habits and all together poor timing, she was just about to _smoke with Louis_ , but now she’s going to spend the whole drive home listening to moralistic rants about the evils of homework copying from Leanne. She sighs, rolling her eyes as Leanne starts the car. 

“You smell like burnt toast,” she tells Harry, taking down her bun and doing it up again, this time more neatly. “You’d think Olivia was the type to have _good_ -smelling weed, wouldn’t you? Apparently not.” 

Harry tries not to take personal offense to the fact that Leanne has just insulted Louis’s weed. She’s being absurd, and she knows it, so she just clears her throat, inhaling steadily. _Another time_ , she thinks, followed by, _it’s probably for the best, anyway. You don’t need to torture yourself anymore than you already do._ Still, she thinks about Louis’s lazy half-grin as she left, her cocked head, the holes in her tank-top. The owed smoking session, or else. _Or else what?_ Harry thinks, shivering at the possibilities. 

—-

Harry tries to push Louis’s smoking raincheck out of her head; expectations always leads to disappointment, and Harry’s already dealing with _enough_ disappointment right now. Catholic school continues to surprise her with how _very Catholic_ it is. After her first day, she wrongly assumed that it would be just like public school, only fancier and with uniforms, but she’s realizing with each successive religion class (“Understanding the Catechism” is most definitely her least favorite period of every day, no contest, she does _not understand_ the catechism and doubts any amount of studying will help), that it’s not just a _label,_ the Catholic thing, it’s a lifestyle. Most of the girls here _are_ Catholic, and she’s acutely aware of the fact that she’s _not,_ that she’s not going to confirmation classes after school, that she never had a First Communion, doesn’t have this basic foundation of religious education that would allow her to feel like anything less than an outcast among her peers. 

It’s not like anyone is _mean_ to her, but she _knows_ that she’s different, and she knows that people treat her differently as a result. Even Leanne, who calls herself a _“_ garden variety” Catholic, will sometimes say something that Harry is well aware is rooted in some church-thing she doesn’t _get,_ wasn’t brought up with. There’s this whole series of rituals and experiences that almost everyone else at this school shares, save for a select few who don’t. Harry and Louis, for example. 

Naturally, it’s one of the eight million things that make Harry want to be closer friends with Louis, one of the eight million things drawing her in magnetically, fueling her fantasies about Louis, all her imagined connections. She spends a lot of time doodling motorcycles and little desert scenes in the margins of her “Understanding the Catechism”notes, winding roads leading into sunsets, saguaros and plateaus and sand and sand and sand, girls with hair on their legs, with short, soft pixie cuts. Harry isn’t a very good artist, so they all just kind of look like scribbles, but she supposes that’s for the best. 

Harry gets used to the feeling of being an outsider, of existing on the periphery of the student body. She also gets used to the sensation of constant, aimless longing in her chest. The type of longing reserved for exotic vacations that she’ll never take, for sunshine and cacti and wind in her hair, for charming girls with golden skin and freckles like the little dipper, girls with high, raspy singing voices who will likely always see her as too young to be taken seriously. Harry has sort of settled into this resigned longing so she almost forgets that she supposedly owes Louis a smoke when she’s walking down the hill to the senior parking lot after school on Wednesday, and Louis rolls up in her dusty Camaro. “Hop in, Styles,” she shouts, beckoning to Harry loosely, aviators flashing in the sun so that Harry can’t make out her eyes, can’t tell if she’s joking. 

Harry stands there dumbly, pigeon-toed and blinking. “But…Leanne’s waiting?” she mutters, because she’s an _idiot_ and naturally sabotages an opportunity to get into Louis’s _car._

“No, she isn’t...I texted her that I was gonna give you a ride home today. You owe me that smoking session, remember? Unless you’re doing something else?” 

“I’m not,” Harry answers hastily, even as her shoes are still rooted to the cement, knees locked, lips stinging as she chews them in disbelief. _In Louis’s car._

Louis sighs dramatically, tapping her horn so that it bleats for a split-second, making Harry jump all the same. “C’mon, Harold, get in...m’stuck on the hill, blocking traffic, s’terribly rude.” 

She’s _not_ blocking traffic, actually, there’s no one behind her, but Harry can’t make her voice point this out, so she shoulders her backpack off, tosses it through the open window and into the messy backseat, and lets herself into the passenger side. Her heart is pounding, mouth dry, and Louis’s grinning like this is a very exciting turn of events, like she _wants_ to take Harry home, like she _wants_ Harry sitting shotgun. It’s fucking confusing and overwhelming, and Harry still can’t unstick her tongue to say words, so she’s just silent and awkward, which is the opposite of witty and charming, which is what she’d like to _be_ around Louis. She coughs, and Louis says, “Buckle up,” pointing at the seatbelt. 

Harry does, her motions stiff and mechanical. “I gotta text Leanne,” she mumbles, eyes glued to her lap. 

“No, you don’t...I already told _you,_ I already told _her,”_ Louis assures her, reaching over and patting her knee idly, which might as well be Harry’s death sentence. She’s burning, probably, she’s gonna burn down this whole fucking car. 

“Uh,” she stutters, knee twitching involuntarily under Louis’s hand. “So you’re gonna take me home? Did you just decide this? Like, to be charitable or something?” 

“Ah, yes, that’s me, Charity Star,” Louis coos, batting her lashes and putting her hand over her heart. Harry’s relieved to see that her knee isn’t fucking _blistered_ from having been touched. “And, _no,_ I stole you from Payno because she stole you from me the other day...she prevented you from enjoying the bowl of stale-ass weed I so generously packed you. I brought some _better weed,_ fyi, like, nice sticky buds...you’re gonna be impressed. We’re gonna have the perfect Wednesday afternoon,” she explains, hand out the window, fingers drifting idly through the breeze as she pulls off campus and out into the street, which seems too sunny and jewel-green to be real, like the world is somehow more beautiful from behind Louis Tomlinson’s windshield. 

“Well, thanks, I guess,” Harry says, rubbing her mouth on the back of her hand, thinking about biting down on something to make sure that she’s not actually dreaming. “For sharing your actually good weed.” 

“No problem,” Louis says nonchalantly, reaching for the dial on her stereo and turning up the volume decidedly, as if she doesn’t really want to have a conversation, which is fine because Harry could use some recovery time. 

It takes a few seconds, but Harry manages to pick out Britney Spears’s distinctive, nasal falsetto, and it’s not a single, so it’s not on the radio, which means that Louis Tomlinson’s fucking _choosing to listen to Britney Spears,_ like an actual Britney Spears album, which is surprising because Harry _usually_ only hears punk coming from Louis’s car, like, Rancid or Social Distortion, the Suicide Machines and their relentless upstroke, all rattling from shitty speakers. Harry grins, chewing her lip for a moment before deadpanning, “So, Britney, huh? Britney and the Spice Girls.” 

“You gotta problem with that, Harold?” Louis snaps, mock offended. “Do you think I’m all skating and tagging and smashing the system, 24/7? Britney is serious business, I take Britney very, very seriously. Britney is a _queen_.” She turns the music up even more, then reaches across Harry’s knees to get a pack of cigarettes from the glove compartment in one deliciously fluid motion. She drops the carton into Harry’s lap, flicking her fingers at her and ordering, “Lighter’s in the cup holder, will you light one up for me? As payment for that dismissive comment about my girl?” 

Harry puts a cigarette in her own mouth, trying to keep it from getting too wet, not wanting to gross Louis out with spit remnants or anything. She lights it with trembling fingers, throat tight so that she doesn’t inhale the bitter nicotine. “I’m not judging you, Britney’s an icon,” she shrugs. “Very punk.” 

“Very punk indeed,” Louis agrees, taking the lit cigarette from Harry. Their fingers brush, and Harry’s heart leaps in her chest, just like that, it’s that _easy._ She shakes her head in self-disgust, and Louis turns up the music again, arm out the open window, hand coasting lazily on the bridge. “This chorus _soars,”_ she tells Harry before bursting out into it, her raspy croon crackling so lovely over _you make me move, move, move_ as she drums her cigarette-free fingers on the steering wheel. Harry might still be staring when Louis asks, “What do _you_ listen to, young Harold?” 

“Indie stuff, mostly,” Harry admits. 

“Ohhhh, indie stuff, Harry’s a hipster, I see how it is,” Louis jokes, grinning at Harry as she rolls up to a stop sign. Harry notices that Louis isn’t heading toward the freeway like she's supposed to if she actually wants to get Harry home; she’s turning right and breezing down the little residential side streets on the way to the Arroyo, where the houses get bigger and fancier and more historical, where there are fucking tennis courts and horse stables and other stupidly ritzy things tucked away behind birch groves. In fact, Harry doesn’t think she ever told Louis where she lives at all. “What _kind_ of indie stuff, name some bands, gimme an idea.” 

“Ummm, like, the Arcade Fire, Cat Power…,” Harry starts, wondering if these are appropriate answers or if she sounds pretentious or basic or something else entirely. 

“And your opinion on Britney Spears?” Louis asks, eyebrows raised above the top rim of her aviators. “Your _honest_ opinion, don’t sugarcoat it for me.” 

Harry snorts, “I _do_ think she’s an icon, I mean, she is, right? Plus, the ‘...Baby One More Time’ video was, like..formative, I guess, s’why I never put up a fight at transferring to a Catholic school because it’s one of the first videos I actually remember learning the dance moves for and stuff, my babysitter taught me.” Harry shuts up before saying something terrifically gay, like, _it was one of the first times I remember really looking at a girl’s tummy and thinking it was hot._ She wants to tell Louis that she’s gay, now that she's at least internally starting to use that word for herself, she wants to _desperately,_ but she doesn’t know if she can pull it off without sounding like some innocent, inexperienced baby-gay in need of a mentor. She _is_ inexperienced with girls, and she _could_ use a mentor, but she obviously doesn’t want _Louis_ to fill that role. Not unless Louis gives hands-on demos. 

“Formative?” Louis asks, taking a drag off her cigarette and coughing out the window. “Formative _how?”_ like she _knows._

Harry hopes that she isn’t turning red as she stumbles for a moment before recovering her footing. “Formative like I was forever changed from that moment on. My only aspiration was to wear a plaid skirt and dance in hallways.” 

Louis laughs. “And look at you now, living the dream and wearing the uniform. You just need to start a flash mob in the science building one day after school, and you’ve got it made, wishes really do come true!”

“Are you Catholic?” Harry blurts, even though she _knows_ that Louis isn’t, _knows_ because she’s watched her walk up to the altar and get her blessing from the priest at Mass, smirking all the while as if the whole thing is a joke. She’s watched her give Leanne a hard time about her own Catholicism, she _knows._ She’s just asking because she wants to redirect the conversation, to address their mutual queerness in a way that _doesn't_ make Harry seem too young. 

“God, _no,_ are you crazy?” Louis snorts, slowing the car down and pulling over, tires crunching on fallen leaves and mulch as she parks. They’re on a shady residential street flanked by oaks, a fancy winding thing with big houses tucked away behind private drives and public hedges. It’s very quiet. “Are you?” Louis asks then, and it takes a moment for Harry to remember what they were talking about, until Louis waves her cigarette impatiently through the air as she rolls up her window and adds, “Catholic, I mean?” 

“No,” Harry answers quickly, wrinkling her nose. “Not at all.” 

Louis puts her cigarette out in an empty mug full of ash and loose change in the cup holder. “Okay,” she says, and her voice sounds neutral but pleased, the corner of her mouth quirking up into a half-smile, mouth shaped around something unsaid. “Follow me, young Harold,” she adds, shouldering her way out of the car and beckoning with a loose wrist. “I wanna show you one of my very favorite places in all the boring-ass suburbs.” 

Harry’s heart leaps up into her throat as she slides out Louis’s passenger’s side door, chest tight and broiling with excitement, anxiety, anticipation. This feels _special,_ Louis taking her out after school and showing her somewhere important to her, but she can’t ascribe meaning to it, can’t trust that it’s _truly special_ or if this is somewhere she takes all her friends. She follows Louis down a narrow dirt path down the road, which ends in a twisted chain-link fence mostly covered in ivy. There’s an opening where someone bent the fence away from a pole, leaving just enough space for someone small to squeeze through, past the ivy. “After you,” Louis gestures to the hole. “Looks bigger than it is, promise...I only snagged my sweatshirt once.” 

Harry ducks through, Louis follows, and they continue down the path until they reach a clearing overlooking a dirty, sluggish wash slithering through concrete. There’s more ivy and more chain-link fencing, plus some graffiti, and it’s not until Harry looks _up_ that she realizes where they are. “The fancy bridge!” she announces, scrambling up a brushy embankment to the cement pillars holding up what is, indeed, the fancy white bridge that goes over the Arroyo. 

“I suppose that’s one name for it,” Louis snorts, following Harry and plopping down next to her. “Most people call it Suicide Bridge, probably because people sometimes jump off it...morbid but true. I like it because you can’t see this spot from the road, so it’s perfect for illicit behavior,” she explains, pulling her aviators off and waggling her eyebrows. There are indents on either side of her nose, a dusting of perspiration above her lip, and Harry wants to touch it all, with her fingertips, with her _lips,_ but she _can’t_ so she tears her gaze away, swallowing thickly. 

“Seems like you’re not the only one who thinks so,” Harry muses, gesturing to the litter around them, empty Lays bags, shattered Corona bottles, crushed Rolling Rock cans. “Meryl and Ricky fucked here,” she notes, pointing to a spray-paint sprawl proclaiming not only that Meryl and Ricky fucked but the exact date upon which the historic event happened. “Three…four summers ago, apparently.” 

Louis cracks up, unzipping her backpack and digging through it. “I hope they used protection...I see condoms up here a lot, which is disgusting but practical, I suppose.” She thumbs open her film canister of weed, and Harry can immediately smell it, green-sticky buds that Louis carefully packs into the bowl of her piece. “See? Good shit,” she boasts. “I’m a wonderful friend.” 

“You’re okay,” Harry acknowledges, watching with stinging eyes as Louis lights up and takes the first hit, big and deep and practiced. She lets the smoke out slowly before lowering herself onto her back, spreading out on the concrete. 

“Here,” she rasps, holding the piece out to Harry, who takes a hit, lungs and throat burning spectacularly as she inhales. It’s been _awhile_ since she smoked using an actual _pipe,_ and she forgot how much harsher the smoke is, how _hot_ it feels as you hold it in. She chokes, coughing and sputtering dramatically as Louis giggles, taking the piece back. “Jesus, don’t hurt yourself.” 

“Ow, _ouch,_ that was awful,” Harry gripes, spitting a frothy mouthful of saliva onto the pavement. “I usually use a bong.”

“Oh, my god, you’re all red, you’re dying,” Louis gasps through peals of laughter, holding her stomach and pointing at Harry as she _laughs_ at her, which Harry supposes she deserves. “Don’t inhale so _much..._ wanna shotgun?” 

Harry starts wheezing harder, _no she does not wanna shotgun,_ she wants to survive her first solo hang out with Louis and not _perish_ in the middle of it, thankyouverymuch. “No, gimme that,” she says, gesturing for the piece. “M’gonna try again, I learned my lesson.” 

“ _Okay,_ Harold,” Louis grumbles, crossing one arm over her chest, the other over her eyes. “Don’t be weird about it, I thought you were cool.” 

Harry’s halfway through gently sucking another hit when she processes what Louis just said, and she has to stop herself from choking again. _Don’t be weird about what?!_ The shotgun? Does Louis think she’s being _homophobic_ in declining her offer, when in reality she just can’t actually handle the pantomime of a kiss without actually fucking _dying?_ She coughs again, already feeling the high creep up on her, syrupy and warm and hazy. “I _am_ cool,” she argues. “S’not that I don’t want…fuck, I just didn’t want you to think I couldn’t properly take a hit off a pipe,” she explains, hacking. “Sorry.” 

“You’re forgiven,” Louis sighs, taking the pipe for a second hit, which is big and deep. Her eyes are already bloodshot, lids heavy as she collapses back onto the pavement, waving a hand to dissipate the smoke. “Don’t worry about it.” 

One more hit, and Harry’s officially stoned. It _is_ good weed, _too_ good, to be honest, and she’s paranoid that she won’t be able to go back home without letting the high wear off for a good couple of hours, she feels that _obviously_ compromised. It’s fine, though, because it’s warm and breezy and golden-bright outside, and the sound of the occasional car rattling over them is oddly comforting, like the tide. Plus, Harry could probably stay here forever, sitting loosely cross-legged on sun-warm pavement while she watches Louis through half-lidded eyes, offering harmonies as she absently croons Britney songs, voice like smoky honey. It’s harder to pretend that she isn’t staring at Louis now that she’s stoned, but Louis doesn’t seem to mind, long lashes sweeping her cheekbones, eyes mostly closed. 

She has such a fucking gorgeous mouth. Harry loves the shape of it, can feel her stomach knotting up as she watches Louis hollowing out her cheeks to take another slow drag, wrist bent like smoking weed is actually elegant. Harry blinks and wonders how many millions of times she’s day-dreamed about kissing Louis Tomlinson. 

They talk about ‘90s music videos (which Louis has an impressive and comprehensive knowledge of), about the girls who tormented them in grade school, about their favorite Disney movies, about the best music venues in LA. It’s surprisingly _easy_ to talk to Louis freely, now that she’s high, now that they’re lying side-by-side on their backs, gazing up at the underside of Suicide Bridge instead of locking eyes at lunch. Harry’s giddy and lightheaded and sun-drunk; she has to keep fighting her impulse to roll closer, to settle herself near enough to the heat of Louis’s body that they could cross ankles. 

At some point, Louis sits up, grumbling. “I fucking hate bras,” she whines, snapping a strap against her shoulder. “I only wear sports bras, and I still hate them, they’re so fucking annoying.” 

Harry’s silent, staring at Louis’s back, the shift of her scapulae under her tank-top muted and lovely. “You can take it off,” she says, too high to _stop herself,_ the words tumbling out of her lips before she can think better of it. She blushes, but Louis doesn’t turn around to look at her, to catch her in the act. 

“Yeah, hold on a minute,” she says, _pulling her shirt over her head_ so that Harry has to look at the whole of her back, soft and tan and dusted in golden hair, the softness at her hips under the band of her bra, which is digging into her curves. She’s sweat-dewy, and Harry’s mouth is fucking _watering,_ her heart clenching like a fist. 

Louis just pulls her bra over her head, sitting fucking _topless under Suicide Bridge,_ a faintly red stripe across her back where her bra has cut into her skin. Harry wants so, _so badly_ to touch it, to reach out and rub the mark with trembling fingertips, to crawl up on her stomach and kiss her there, where she’s tender, to lick the salt away. It’s only for a moment, but Harry knows that she won’t ever be able to forget it, feeling inalterably changed as Louis pulls her tank-top on and flops down onto her back again. 

“Better?” Harry asks weakly, mouth dry. 

“Yeah, much better,” Louis says lightly, rubbing an open palm over her newly freed chest, nipples hardening under the thin layer of cotton, and Harry _stares,_ completely incapable of pretending that there’s anything else she’d rather look at in the entire world. 

“Good, m’glad,” she tells Louis, and it must sound incredibly stupid because Louis cracks up. 

“You’re always funny, but you’re especially funny when you’re high,” she observes, idly kicking at an empty beer can. It clatters off their perch and into the wash, disappearing into a tiny pinprick of metallic against all that concrete. “I should smuggle you away from Leanne and get you stoned more often.” 

“Please,” Harry begs, squeezing her eyes shut tightly. It might be too much, it probably _is_ too much _,_ but she can’t stop herself, not when everything is so warm and green and no one can see them from the road. _Please_ , she thinks again, eyes fixed on the delicate curve of Louis’s smiling lower lip. 

—-

Gym is the absolute _bane_ of Harry’s existence. It would be fine, maybe, if she had taken it her first year with everyone _else_ in her class _,_ but she didn’t, so here she is, taking it with a bunch of smelly, awkward freshmen who somehow seem so much _younger_ than she is, even if only by a year. They’re fresh out of middle school, they laugh too loudly, they try too hard, and only three quarters of them actually wear deodorant. In spite of all this, Harry doesn’t feel like they think she’s cool or respect her for being a year older, instead, she feels actively judged and ostracized, like they all think that she _failed_ gym last year and had to retake it or something. 

It’s not like she’s unathletic or anything; she played tennis for a minute in fifth grade and volleyball at summer camp, and she’s always liked to swim, but something about the actual _class_ is unbearable. At least part of it is the teacher, a silver-haired, pale-eyed, whistle-blowing tyrant from Australia. Harry’s terrified of her, and for good reason: if she thinks you aren’t trying, she’ll make you spend the whole period running up and down the stairs while holding hand-weights or doing sit-ups while she stands in front of you, staring. It’s like the military, and Harry is _not_ cut out for that. But even _without_ Mrs. Wakehorn ( _Wakehorn,_ like, how is that even real), Harry would still hate gym because when it comes down to it, what she _really_ hates is changing in front of everyone in the locker room. 

It’s stupid and disheartening because the truth of the matter is that up until Catholic school, Harry hadn’t given two shits about being naked in front of her peers. She was always the first to shuck her pants and hop in the lake on a hot day, the one willing to swim in her underwear and bra if she forgot a bathing suit for a pool party. She’s never been self-conscious about her actual body, no matter how gangly or flat-chested she is, but here, she _knows_ that there’s this unspoken, paranoid homophobia surrounding _anyone_ who isn’t a certified Catholic, anyone who isn’t gender-conforming in the most basic, obvious way. Harry has shortish hair, doesn’t wear makeup, hangs out with Louis Tomlinson sometimes, and can _see_ that it makes the freshmen shifty-eyed about her in the locker room, and it’s absolutely _dreadful._ She can sense them all wondering if she’s gay, _and she is_ , so she feels like she’s lying to them. Keeping a secret that shouldn’t have to be a secret. The whole Locker Room Politics thing makes her want to crawl out of her skin even more than the itchy nylon shorts she has to wear, even more than Mrs. Wakehorn’s watery gray eyes narrowed at her less-than-perfect push-up form. 

To add insult to injury, Harry has gym _last period_ on Fridays, which means her final hour of the entire school week is usually spent sweating, suffering, and then changing while she wonders how many girls in her class hide their bodies around her because they wrongfully think she’s checking them out. It always _crawls_ by, and she feels generally disgusting once it’s over, too filthy to go anywhere worthwhile straight from school without going home to shower first. 

So her head’s bent and she’s in a generally terrible mood as she stalks out of the gym after the final bell rings, brow sweat-crusted and cheeks cherry-red, feeling flushed from head to toe and all together undesirable when she's suddenly hit with a torrent of water as she steps out into the sunlight. It lands squarely on her chest. 

She’s stunned, eyes wide and ears ringing as the freshmen around her shriek and scatter, _everyone’s_ getting wet, and she has no idea what’s going on until she gets hit in the face again, eyes landing on Nyla, who’s standing with a group of seniors outside the gym, all of them armed with squirt guns and super soakers. Nyla cracks up and nails Harry in the chest again, and Harry would be totally offended if it also didn’t feel sort of _good;_ it’s so hot that everything smells like hose water and plastic, which is infinitely better than freshmen gym-sweat. “Hey!” she yelps anyway, dumping her gym duffel onto the concrete and attacking Nyla, who’s absolutely _beside_ herself with hiccuping gales of laughter. 

“Happy Friday!” Nyla crows, shoving uselessly at Harry, who’s trying unsuccessfully to wrestle the squirt gun away and turn it on her, fingers slipping against the neon-green plastic. “Forgot you were in this class...was just gonna get the freshies but then saw you and couldn’t resist,” she wheezes. Harry has big hands and long arms, but Nyla’s strong and quick and anticipates her every swipe. “Congratulations on surviving your first two months at St. Catherine’s!” she yells, twisting away and dousing Harry’s hair in water. 

Harry sputters loudly, but it’s not enough to drown out the unmistakable peal of Louis’s laughter, echoing from somewhere to her left. Her stomach drops; she’s red and sweaty and gross, her hair is now slicked to her forehead, and _Louis_ is somewhere nearby, ready to look at her and see her as just another baby freshman who’s made it through her first month of school, dripping and humiliated. She spins on her heel, scanning the crowd desperately, Nyla forgotten. It’s too late, though, Louis comes at her from behind, wrapping her arms around Harry’s shoulders and pulling her back, smelling like smoke and cologne and sunlight, breath at her ear as she giggles. “Curly, where did your curls go? You’re all wet! Happy two months!” she cackles, and Harry’s heart sort of bottoms out in her chest. 

Louis’s water pistol is pressed up against Harry’s spine, hard and biting, and Harry doesn’t think too hard about twisting in Louis’s loose grip, trying to snatch it away with slick hands. “You guys are a terrible welcoming committee,” she hisses, grappling with Louis for the pistol, gaze skirting up her body reflexively before locking eyes. Louis’s are twinkling, the bluest blue, and Harry doesn’t know if she’ll ever breathe again. 

Louis makes a wordless, maniacal sort of noise before deftly unscrewing the water cartridge of the gun and dumping it on Harry’s shirt in one quick-fire motion, getting a bunch of it on herself in the process, but Harry doesn’t even have time to _enjoy_ that because she’s gasping at the cold, her shirt suddenly soaked as she skitters away, desperately sucking in air. She recovers quickly and lunges for Louis, who scrambles away elegantly, arms curved over her head like she’s pirouetting, always moving with the ease and grace of a fucking dancer even when she’s dousing unsuspecting underclassmen with _water_ , and really, it's unfair. The whole thing. 

Harry picks at her white oxford shirt, which is clinging to her _black_ bra, and even though she was just in her underwear in a room full of freshmen five minutes ago, she feels so much more exposed now, her shirt translucent and Louis’s glittering blue eyes on her, everything charged and hot and electric. She’s so cold and wet that her teeth are chattering as Louis gives her one final squirt with the remaining water in her cartridge, grinning spectacularly all the while. “Do you have a change of clothes? The theater seniors wanna take you out tonight. Just you and the other cool sophomores, though, not everyone else, so don’t go talking about it,” Louis explains, sidling closer and flicking Harry on the arm before looking up coyly through her stupidly long lashes. 

There’s a moment of dumbfounded silence on Harry’s part before she realizes that there’s no _just kidding, have a good weekend_ coming.“Sure, okay...what are we doing?” she asks, shivering in her soaked shirt. 

“Not sure yet, but Veronica’s parents are out of town, and her house is the absolute best for parties, so we’ll probably end up there. You wanna come with me, or should I pick you up? Now that I know where you live,” she adds, and this…is this _flirting_? Harry can’t tell; she’s reeling and dripping, and there are still freshmen around her, shrieking and laughing and making it really fucking hard to focus. 

“Well, I don’t have clothes and need a shower, so is picking me up gonna be out of your way? I don’t wanna be a pain in the ass.” 

“Not at all, young Harold” Louis assures her, hip-checking Harry playfully, eyes skimming her wet shirt, and surely, _surely_ this is flirting. How flirting works between girls, anyway, getting them wet and looking at their bras through their shirts, _right?_ She isn’t crazy? Her heart is racing, and she can hardly breathe, but she manages to nod, playing it cool. 

“Okay, I'll text you when m’ready...thanks.” 

“Sweet!” Louis says, clapping her hands together and rolling onto the balls of her feet. “Oh, and bring a proper bathing suit because Veronica has a fancy pool,” Louis advises, waggling her eyebrows. “See you soon...m’glad you’re coming.” 

Harry tries not to fist-pump in wild, elated triumph on her way to Leanne’s car, shivering all the while. 

CHAPTER 4

She doesn’t want to get her hopes up, but Harry still trims her pubes a little in the shower, nothing _big_ or dramatic, just some casual landscaping. Just in case. She feels stupid for even thinking to do it, lies to herself by pretending that it’s because she _feels_ like it and not because she got a text from Louis a few minutes ago that said _bring overnight stuff, everyone’s gonna be drinking and no one want to b dd so were all just gonna crash at ronnies :)_ which means that she’s truly, actually going to _sleep over somewhere with Louis._ She’s going to see her sleep-crumpled and hungover on Saturday morning, she’ll need to make up some excuse for her mom, who hates letting her spend the night at houses she’s never been to herself. 

Harry vigorously lathers herself up, unable to stop thinking about the way Louis had _looked_ at her this afternoon. The casual, heated sweep over her wet shirt, drinking in the cling of translucent fabric to the skin underneath. What did that fucking _mean?_ It was just a _bra_ , after all, and a boring, simple, Target bra at that, nothing sexy or revealing or worth looking at. Louis is _baffling,_ and Harry doesn’t know what any of it means or what she’s supposed to do about it, so she tries to clear her mind of expectation as she rinses off, thinking, _you’re just getting rid of the pubes on your thighs for yourself. It’s fine. It’s chill._

When she gets dressed, she pretends that _that’s_ for herself, too, and not at all like she’s stressing the fuck out over whether she should try to look cute or not. She settles on a pair of high-waisted denim cut-offs that her legs look pretty good in, with a threadbare, oversized Rolling Stones shirt tucked in. Casual but flattering. She feels like a fucking idiot sitting in the living room with her knees drawn to her chest and her mouth all stingy and minty from toothpaste, backpack shouldered, all ready to go with last summer’s stretched out black bikini alongside some clean underwear for tomorrow. She’s like a _child_ on her first playdate or something, overeager and all together embarrassing. 

Harry’s mom is still at work, and Gemma has offered to cover for her, swear that she’s somewhere reputable, so Harry isn’t worried about _that_ , but she’s worried all the same, stomach roiling with static and nerves and excitement. She can smell her own lotion because she’s sweating faintly; Louis’s running late, and she tries to keep in mind that it doesn’t _mean_ anything, _no expectations, no plans, nothing at all, you’re just along for the ride, ready for anything at all she has to offer you._ Harry works on taking deep breaths, deliberately not thinking about the fact that she’s gonna be fucking _swimming_ with Louis tonight, in all likelihood.

Louis rolls up a good half-hour after she said she would, and Harry hears her before she sees her, Ariana Grande blasting so hard from her shitty speakers that it would be nearly unintelligible if Harry hadn’t already heard “Side to Side” rattling out of Louis’s car every day this week, practically. It’s entirely too loud and filthy for school, for Harry’s modest suburb, and it delights her, Louis and all her loudness, all her filth, right here between the neat rows of houses, the trimmed green lawns separated by concrete. _sorry i’m late, traffic was shittttt!!! come here,_ Louis texts, since Harry’s just sitting frozen in her own living room, working hard not to vault out of the door instantly, like a dog from a doggie door. 

She waits a few more seconds before sauntering out in what she hopes is a casual, totally normal, Friday afternoon way, instead of a tail-wagging, lemme-in-your-car- so-I-can-lick-your-face-asap way. Louis grins from the driver’s side, bleating the horn in time with Nicki Minaj’s part. “Harold!” she shouts, waving. “Need me to come meet your mom? I love moms...moms love me.” 

Harry snorts, cheeks coloring because literally all her male friends in grade school had crushes on her mom, who is admittedly very young and fashionable as far as moms go. It would be just her luck for Louis to feel the same way, too. “She works late, so we’re safe. You don’t have to meet her, at least not yet,” she adds, and Louis hops out of the car to open the passenger’s side, which is so sweet, so unanticipated? 

Her heart flutters in her chest for a moment before flat-out _choking_ her when Louis says, “Sweet, let’s go...you look cute, by the way,” casual and easy, like any other girl commenting on her friend’s Friday look. Harry blushes, hands suddenly sweating, so she wipes them on her shorts as she sits and Louis shuts the door behind her. She realizes that even though she sees Louis out of uniform all the time, Louis rarely sees her, except in theater when she strips down to her bike shorts and puts on tennis shoes. It’s been oxfords and plaid skirts and penny loafers up until now, the glamour-free grit and grime of the school day. Maybe she _is_ cute, maybe Louis’s seeing her in a new light now, realizing that she’s not boring or gross or basic, like she seems during the week, but that she has long legs, pretty green eyes. Maybe Louis will see her.

_No expectations!_ she reminds herself, eyes darting over to Louis, who’s wearing olive-green cargo shorts and an F-Minus shirt with the sleeves cut out all the way down to the waist, revealing her rib cage, the lower-most roll of her stomach, the dimple of her waist. So sexy and golden and soft, and Harry just wants to _chew_ on it, she wants to touch. This is entirely too much skin to be tempted with, and her voice comes out reedy when she says, “ _Thank_ you, Louis. Believe it or not, I don’t always wear that blazer, no matter how formative the ‘...Baby One More Time’ video was.” 

Louis shrugs, eyes on the road. “You look cute in the blazer, too,” she says nonchalantly, and _what the fucking fuck,_ what is Harry supposed to think?

“You probably do, too, but I wouldn’t know because I don’t even think you own one? Do you ever actually wear the entire uniform?” she asks, deflecting. 

“Not since freshman year!” Louis boasts proudly. “They stopped giving me demerits because it’s, like, a lost cause. I literally haven’t seen my blazer in three years, I just borrow Veronica’s when I walk into Mass.” Her grin is very cheeky and bright, and she’s squinting in the sun, aviators pushed up into the overgrown auburn shag of her hair. The horizon is hazy and pink-orange as dark sneaks up on them, the air smelling of sprinkler water and BBQ smoke from people leaching the last warmth of October before summer’s gone for good. Harry feels alive with possibility, eyes watering as she smiles at Louis, unable to stop, hopelessly fond. She wrinkles her nose like it’ll somehow hide the way it looks on her face to be in love. 

“You’re actually, like, really close to Nyla, so m’gonna swing by and pick her up, too. Honorary theater dyke and all,” Louis sighs. “It’ll be Nyla, the rest of the seniors, and then Jesy and Jade from your class. Also, you’ll get to meet my friend Lauren...she goes to Flintridge and is one of the sickest people I know. She’s gonna meet up with us at some point,” she explains, eyes twinkling. 

“Nice,” Harry says, beaming because she’s _meeting Louis’s other friends,_ her friends outside of school, and for the first time their friendship feels _truly_ real, more than just classmates, singing buddies, after-school smoke session partners in crime. “I’m excited to meet her...and get drunk and swim in Veronica’s allegedly very fancy pool.” 

“It’s very fancy indeed,” Louis assures her, rolling up to a red light and hammering Nyla’s address into the GPS. “I’m also very excited for you to swim in it.” 

Harry spends the next forty minutes pondering and stressing over all the potential implications (or not) of that sentence, all the way to Nyla’s house and then all the way to an In-n-Out in Glendale where the three of them will rendezvous with everyone else.They’re sitting in the car waiting when Louis flashes her a look across the driver’s side, head cocked thoughtfully. “You look _nervous,_ Harold.” 

Feeling caught, she swallows thickly, sits up taller, wills her cheeks to do _anything_ but color in that spectacular way they do. “M’not? Well...maybe a little, I guess, because I don’t know _exactly_ what to expect? I’m not a tried-and-true theater girl, and I hear cast parties can get pretty wild,” she’s mostly joking, but her characteristic deadpan delivery hardly ever works in Louis’s presence as it relies on her appearing to not give a fuck, and Louis makes her give _so many fucks_. 

“Yeah, they can get wild…Veronica’s parents have an amazing liquor cabinet, and she _also_ has a fake and a million college boys in love with her and willing to buy her whatever she wants, so I suppose you can anticipate everyone getting collectively shwasted.” 

“Shwasted?” Harry snickers, kicking her feet up on the dash. 

“Wasted but slurring your words. Tell me you aren’t a prude about some good old-underaged drinking?” Nyla gasps from the back seat, poking Harry’s shoulder. “Otherwise we’ll have to disown you.” 

“No, I’m down to get shwasted,” Harry mumbles, trying hard not to look at Louis, who’s frantically texting someone and not focused on her at all, which shouldn’t feel like death but sort of does. Harry tries to be satisfied by the fact that she’s still sitting in the honorary shotgun position even though she’s not a senior while _actual_ senior Nyla is banished to the back. It’s the small consolations that get her through the constant self-doubt. 

“Okay!” Louis announces, commanding the attention of the entire car, sitting up in the driver’s seat, eyes bright. “We’re gonna drive a few blocks, chill out in a parking lot with the rest and best of the girls, smoke some weed, drink some bottle shots. _Then_ we’re gonna eat In-n-Out. _Then_ we’re going to Veronica’s legendary home and legendary pool and having a legendary party...are we ready?” she asks, and she’s _not_ looking at Nyla, or even _both_ of them, she’s looking at Harry and Harry alone, their gazes locked and electric in a way that makes her shiver.

“I’m ready,” Harry says, holding up her fist for Louis to bump, a weird theater ritual they developed backstage. “For anything that happens tonight.” 

—-

After some scalding hot vodka shots and a few hits from a joint in an In-n-Out bathroom, Harry’s whole body is humming in happy, shivery hunger. She wants a burger and fries, but mostly she wants Louis’s skin, Louis’s kisses, Louis’s breath huffed out onto her open, spit-slick mouth. She’s spent the majority of her crush on Louis pretending that it’s something else, but with her resolves crumbled and her walls down, she's _feeling_ , honestly and purely, for the first time. Just letting herself stew in it. _I’m gay, even if I don't know what that really means. I’m gay because I love Louis, even if it’s scary and she doesn't love me back. This is who I am._ For the first time in perhaps the whole of her life, Harry’s being honest with herself. Vodka-rough and weed-soft and longing and longing and longing, here she is. Clutching Louis’s elbow, trying to catch her eye.

“Okay,” Louis coughs, handing the joint to Veronica, who sucks on it daintily, blowing smoke from her nose before she passes it to Harry, who hands it straight to Nyla without taking another hit, already roasted enough for tonight. She's done, for now. Louis is backlit in bathroom fluorescence, and it’s perfect, this is all she wants, right here, forever. “Anyone else? M’gonna put it out so Lauren and the other girls can have some if they want.” 

“LJ will just _bring_ weed,” Veronica reminds her, twirling her long dark hair around a manicured nail. “So you can finish it off, babes.” 

Louis does, and she’s bloodshot and smiley and perfect afterwards, sloppy-soft as she dumps herself into the red- vinyl-upholstered booth and gives cash to Nyla to order them all some food. “You want anything?” she asks Harry, who drops into place beside her, tracing the swirly patterns on the table top, fingers coming back greasy. She’s trying so hard not to be obviously magnetized to Louis, but it’s impossible when Louis’s stoned and cuddly like this, offering her side to sidle up against. “Nah, just fries,” she says, and Louis grins at her. 

“Yeah, okay, you can share mine... _have_ ‘em, even, I don’t care,” and, _fuck_ , Harry feels so _special,_ so paid attention to. Like the luckiest girl in the world with Louis doting on her, offering her food. 

The other girls squish into the booth with their own orders, pressing Harry flush against the heat of Louis’s body more snugly, and, _god,_ she could die here, maybe. Unkissed but touched. She feels absurdly happy and less self-conscious than she usually does around these girls; everyone’s laughing at her jokes or jostling her in a friendly, easy way, like they’re all the _same,_ like she _belongs_. And Louis more so than any of them, her infectious grin and pink cheeks, the damp huff of her breath so very near Harry’s ear as she leans in close to tell her something. At some point, Louis demands everyone toss fries into her mouth, and the table half-heartedly agrees, though none of them are very good at it. 

“Jesus, open it wider, they're just bouncing off your teeth,” Normandi snaps, before throwing three fries successively at Louis with no real intent to get them into her mouth. They land in her lap, and she cackles as she tries to grab them, but Harry, carefully, plucks one off her thigh and eats it. 

“I’m open wide, you guys just have terrible aim!” 

“We’re too far away,” Veronica complains, pelting another fry at Louis lazily from the opposite side of the table. “Have Harry try.” 

“That’s not fair, she’s practically on her lap!” Nyla yelps with her mouth full, spraying crumbs everywhere. Harry’s stomach drops at the suggestion, but she pretends that she’s not affected, that she’s in on this game, that it doesn't feel like an accusation, to be told that she’s sitting on Louis. 

“Okay Lou, open wide,” she says defiantly, grabbing a fry from Jesy’s plate since she nervously ate all her own. “If I miss from ten inches away, it’ll be a fucking embarrassment.”

She holds the fry between thumb and forefinger, the other girls goading and teasing and cracking up around her, a cacophony of noise and tittering that Harry can hardly hear because _Louis_ is looking at her with such a wild, manic glint in her eye, something coy and sexy and wonderful. But before she can toss the fry, Louis leans in and snatches it right out of her hand with her teeth, her soft wet lips brushing Harry’s fingertips in the process, making her heart flutter before it leaps. “Ta dah!” Louis announces as she chews the fry dramatically, holding her arms up in triumph and punching the air. “We did it, y’all just can’t keep up with the dream team.” 

And Harry preens in the attention, dizzy still, the humming fluorescent bulbs overhead streaking around her like tail lights behind a rainy window, bright but fuzzy as she laughs so hard that tears spring to the corners of her eyes. She’s so, _so_ fucking happy right now, and she _knows_ it’s irrational and possibly dangerous, but she can’t care. For the first time since she _met_ Louis, she feels like maybe, just maybe, she was _wrong,_ and there’s hope. That something could happen, that they're _flirting,_ seriously flirting, not just as a joke. 

She’s been so convinced that Louis would only ever see her as a little sister, a theater mentee, any fondness remote and condescending (if it existed at all), but _this_ …this feels like real friendship laced with _something else,_ something hot and crackling and wonderful _._ Louis isn’t paying attention to everyone equally, she’s focused on Harry, and perhaps that’s because this is Harry’s first time out with this group and Louis’s the sort to check in and make sure everyone’s having a good time, but _still._ It feels special, Louis flicking her ear, messing with her hair, feeding her fries, casually linking their ankles under the table where no one can see. It feels private and therefore significant. All these magic private places where they’re touching _liquify_ Harry, set her on fire, give her _hope,_ flickering like a tiny flame in her chest, rash and delicate but there all the same. 

Louis keeps whispering things to her that aren't secrets, just private asides, licking salt from her lips before they brush against the shell of Harry’s ear, and, _god,_ she’s melting, she never wants this to end. She wants to be the vessel for Louis’s not-secrets, always. But tragically, everyone finishes their food, and Veronica is rolling her eyes and reaching across the table to poke Louis. “Hey, c’mon, I want to get back to my place so I can ditch these shitty heels.” 

_“_ Right, right, just need you to drive, babes,” Louis says cheekily, blowing a kiss at Veronica. “Take us away.” 

And with that, they pile out of the booth and into their respective cars. Harry shivers outside, and Louis pops her trunk to fish out a crumpled denim jacket. “Here you go, curly,” she offers, grinning. “Can hear your teeth chattering from over here.” 

Harry smiles so hard that it hurts, dimple popping, cheeks aching as she plops heavily into Louis’s car with the denim draped over her shoulders like a cape. She ends up in the back seat this time, which is fine because Louis’s sitting shotgun and twisting around to regard the rest of them, backlit in the sunset-orange fading over the horizon behind her. It’s good and golden back here, and Harry feels impossibly safe in Louis’s jacket, the sleeve of which she keeps bringing up to her face so that she can inhale from it, the bite of nicotine and the spice of her cologne under the layer of mildew from having been stuffed in the trunk. Harry doesn't mind that bit either, though, she _loves_ being in Louis’s car, the way that every inhalation smells like cigarettes, perfume, the green skunk-ghost of weed. She wants her pillow to smell like this, her hair, her clothes. She wants to be Louis’s, to be marked in her scent, forever and always and then some. Until there's nothing left but their bones. 

Veronica’s house is at the top of a winding road, tucked up in the hills of Glendale. Below them, North Hollywood looks like a tossed handful of glitter, so far away that the city loses its shape and turns into a tight smattering of diamond lights coating a mountain. It feels magical in a way that it’s never felt before, so Harry clumsily rolls down the window and sticks her head outside, letting the cool, tarry night air buffet her hair around her flushed face. 

When they roll into the wrap-around driveway flanked by manicured landscaping, Harry notices a shiny red Subaru already parked and a girl leaning against it, her dark hair glossy under the glare of Veronica’s porch light. She’s wearing a shiny leather jacket and artfully tattered jeans tucked into Doc Martens, everything about her crisp and hard-lined and technicolor, like she's starring in a music video. “Is that my LJ?!” Louis screeches from the front seat, unbuckling her belt and stumbling out the second Veronica brakes. “LJ! You’re here!” 

Harry watches with her heart in her throat as Louis bounds across the fake cobblestone driveway to attack-hug this girl, launching into her arms. She doesn't think much of it until Louis places a wet, sloppy kiss on her mouth, getting this girl’s red lipstick all over her own face in the exchange as she shrieks and pulls her close, their bodies flush as they stumble into the side of the car. 

Everyone’s getting out, someone’s holding the door open for Harry, but she can’t think, all she can do is stare in muted horror while Louis kisses _this other girl,_ gets her hands in this _other girl’s hair_ and fluffs it up, talking in rapid-fire hushed whispers with her. She feels numb as her tennis shoes hit the pavement, as she walks on mechanical legs toward them, the world fading to gray, save for the lipstick smudges on both of their faces. “Harry!” Louis crows, gesturing for her to come over with a loose, curved arm that this girl’s acrylic nails are biting into. “Harry, this is my friend Lauren...LJ, this is Harry, the one I was telling you about.” 

Lauren winks, and Harry doesn’t even properly register _this_ Lauren with the Lauren that Louis told her she’d be meeting. “Hey,” she says, offering a hand, and she smells so girly and fruity and perfumed and lovely that Harry can feel herself withering in shame, in foolishness. _This_ is Louis’s girlfriend, _this_ is the girl who rides on the back of her imaginary motorcycle. Her image outshines and supersedes Perrie Edwards by miles, she's _obviously_ edgy and gay at the same _time_ , she’s stunning, the perfect combination of everything that Harry is not and never will be. Her ice-blue eyes are calculating and curious as she sweeps over Harry’s face and shakes her sweaty hand. “Nice to meet you.” 

“Nice to meet you, too,” Harry mumbles as she shakes Lauren’s cool hand, heart aching. She feels something akin to grief as she forces a smile, unable to stop staring at the way that Louis’s drunkenly hanging off Lauren’s arm, eagerly watching them exchange hellos, eyes bright and unknowing. Like she’s just _excited_ to watch her new friend meet her gorgeous girlfriend. 

Harry is so…humiliated. She _thought_ that she and Louis had been flirting at In-n-Out, that she was maybe destined to be more than the sophomore friend who completed Louis’s gay duets at rehearsal. It was a fucking foolish and embarrassing thing to get hopeful about, though, because she can _see_ Louis now, her bright eyes eager for Harry’s approval and recognition of this relationship. _Look at this stunning girl I get to drive home and take on dates and kiss on the mouth,_ it says. _Wouldn’t you like to know what it’s like to be this beautiful and blessed, what it’s like to look so nice in a leather jacket, what it’s like to get what you want?_ “I’ve heard a lot about you,” Lauren says,popping her gum before she blows a pretty pink bubble, eyes smiling even if her smudged red lips aren’t. It pops, and she tongues inside her mouth, and Harry would find it hot were her heart not broken, if she didn’t _know_ this girl was already occupying the space she wishes she could. 

Harry swallows thickly, thinking, _I haven’t heard anything about you._ They’re all splitting into groups and heading into Veronica’s house through the front door or to the pool via the gate, and Louis makes _fucking sure_ that she and Lauren are heading off together, tucked closely, heads bent together in a way that feels so very _tight,_ shutting out the rest of the world, Harry included. “Harold, go ahead and check out the pool, it’s sick,” Louis shouts to her when she catches her lost gaze, their eyes locking. “Make sure Perrie doesn’t do shots and puke immediately...m’a little worried about her, she does shit like that.” 

“Hey!” Perrie shouts, indignantly, and Louis cackles, shooting her a lazy peace sign at the same time Perrie flips her off. 

“Just kidding, Pez,” she quips. 

“Sure, I’ll go check out the pool,” Harry says flatly, because it’s not like she wants to watch Louis and Lauren hold hands and go make out in Veronica’s kitchen or anything. Perrie, who’s _completely sober,_ slings an arm around Harry's shoulders and steers her to the backyard, shaking her head, and it’s pretty clear she doesn't need a babysitter, Louis was just trying to get _rid_ of Harry, buy herself some time and space with Lauren unscrutinized. It’s like she _knows_ how much Harry likes her, how much it would hurt her to see them close and touching. She’s taking _care_ of her, and it hurts so much, knowing that she’s aware of Harry’s weak spots and treading gently around them. 

By the time Harry gets the grand tour of Veronica’s spectacular backyard and infinity pool, she’s thoroughly convinced that the only way to get through the night is to compartmentalize, and then strategically sanitize and numb the wound. They make their way through the sliding glass doors to rejoin the rest of the group, who are giggling while they mix drinks at the _full fucking bar_ while Lauren and Louis talk somewhere near the fridge, heads still drawn close together, smiles conspiratorial. 

Harry watches, swallows, and swallows again. Then she vows to get as drunk as possible, as drunk as she ever has ever been in her entire _life_. 

—

She chokes down a drink without being able to tell what it is. There’s a bottle of Grey Goose and some Titos and some Jack Daniels, and Nyla is mixing things with _abandon,_ cheeks flushed as she hands them out, asking, “Is it good? Too strong?” 

Harry tells her it’s fine, though it burns on the way down, and she can’t detect more than a hint of mixer. She just wants to stop feeling the throb of pain deep in her chest every time she looks at Louis, who has stripped down to her sports bra and hopped up onto Veronica’s fancy leather couch, bouncing with her red solo cup held over her head. She's shiny and gorgeous, and Lauren is climbing up there with her, they’re hugging, tripping, sending each other off balance as they dissolve into fits of laughter. Harry chugs, head fuzzy, ice bumping up against her lips. 

Veronica’s house is fucking gorgeous. The floors are marble, or at least made to look like it, and she has spiral staircases with gold railings, modern art sculptures on little pedestals, high ceilings. Everything echoes when they yell, and Harry’s so busy trying to take it all in that she misses the grand tour of the basement and _gym,_ apparently. She just finishes her drink and asks Nyla for another one, trying to look at _anything_ but the easy way that Lauren and Louis are whispering together. 

When Veronica leads the rest of the pack up to the main level, someone puts on music, and the opening chords of Britney’s “...Baby One More Time” vibrate through the living room, the paintings on the walls visibly shimmering, it’s so loud. “Harold!” Louis crows, on her feet again, having recovered from capsizing with Lauren. “It’s your song!” 

_Is it?_ Harry wonders, heart racing as Normandi and Jesy drag her onto the makeshift dance floor, already swaying, popping their hips, cheering. Harry loves to dance, but she’s _not_ good at it, and she certainly isn't going to look any better dancing with the two most talented dancers in all of theater, so she scrambles away, shaking her head as she backs into Perrie. They play Destiny’s Child, Rihanna, Christina Aguilera, Lady Gaga, a whole playlist that volleys from all the sugary pop and R&B hits of the nineties to contemporary top forty and back again, everything sexy and grinding and loud and sung by some incredibly hot woman that Harry shouldn’t be thinking about right now. She’s acutely aware that there are no _boys_ here, not at the party and not on the playlist, and as she watches Louis dance every silly bit of choreography from every Britney single, like she’s committed it effortlessly to memory, she realizes with increasingly stark horror that she’s _gay,_ she’s so fucking gay, her heart is broken, she feels like shit, but at the same _time,_ she feels so _right,_ so at home.

_This is where I belong,_ she thinks as she loops her arms around Perrie’s neck and they shout the lyrics to Gaga’s “Telephone” to each other. Perrie’s eye makeup looks glittery in the dark, her breath smells like vodka, and Harry is suddenly so dizzy as she breathes it in, stumbling backward, laughing in this panicked, compulsive way. The truth is that she wants so badly to be near Louis, touching her, _close_ like they were before Lauren showed up, and it’s driving her crazy. She feels drawn in magnetically, but she can’t just go _take Lauren’s place,_ sidle up between her and Louis when she _knows_ that they're girlfriends. 

She stumbles to the bar, but Nyla is off dancing, so she just pours herself a shot of Titos and throws it back, coughing as she swallows, chest tight, face hot. She grabs some water as a chaser, but it turns out it to be some nasty tonic water instead, which is still better than straight vodka, so she chokes it down. It takes her a moment to recover, but when she starts to head back to the living room where everyone else is dancing, Louis meets her halfway, clumsily backing her up against the bar again, sloppy and soft and drunk and irresistible. 

“Look at you,” she murmurs, hooking a finger into Harry's belt-loop to steady herself, making her shiver. “Drinking alone?” 

“I was just...I wasn’t alone, I was gonna go back...to dance with everyone,” she slurs, swaying in toward Louis, unable to keep from wanting to inhale from her. 

“Dance with me, here,” Louis says, grabbing her hands and shimmying toward her, face split in such a perfect smile, eyes twinkling. Harry allows herself about three seconds of this, finding the beat of “Rude Boy” with Louis caged in her long arms, before she can’t stand a single second longer. Louis’s too close, she smells too good, and Lauren is _right there,_ watching them, probably, wondering what Harry is doing with her girlfriend. 

“Come on,” Harry announces, encircling long fingers around Louis’s wrist and dragging her back to the living room, nearly tripping over the rug under the coffee table, which is littered with empty solo cups and a half-gone bottle of wine. She can feel the shot hitting her hard all of a sudden, her peripheral vision blurring as she spins Louis clumsily and totters with her into Veronica, who has at some point managed to strip down to her black tights and bra, hair pulled up into a scarf so that the sharp bones of her face look more pronounced. 

“Look who’s drunk,” she smirks fondly, grabbing Harry and drawing her close, burying her face in the humid mess of her curls. It’s the most physical Veronica has _ever_ been with Harry, so she tenses up, gasps, stumbling away as Veronica lets her go in a fit of giggles. “It’s a good look on you, Styles,” she hoots, smiling as she sways along to the ending notes of Rihanna. “You loosen up a little.” 

Harry’s loosening up a _lot_. Gwen Stefani’s “What You Waiting For?” comes on, and she’s whooping along with the bass line, arms getting big and loose and crazy as she dances, not caring if she looks like a stork or a windmill or whatever she looks like. She’s drunk. Veronica thinks it looks good, Louis’s laughing inches away from her, and her heart hurts so she can do whatever she wants, right? Perrie and Lauren are grinding on the couch together, low and sexy and pressed up tightly, hips working in perfect unison because _of course_ Lauren’s a good dancer, _of course._ Harry flails in response, not _caring_ how awkward she looks, how sweaty she’s getting. Through the smoke haze of the joint they’re all passing around, she keeps seeing Louis float in and out of her periphery, her loose shirt tenting around her as she spins and jumps and screams herself hoarse, arms over her head, glorious dusting of auburn under her arms looking so lickably soft in the half-darkness. Harry longs, and it just makes her dance harder. _What you waiting what you waiting what you waiting what you waiting for?_

At some point, Louis materializes from the shadows and grabs Harry, cupping her warm hands to her cheeks and pulling her in fiercely, draping her arms around her neck. Earlier in the evening, Harry might have been able to resist her in self-preservation, but she’s shit-faced now, shwasted like she promised, so all she can do is melt into it, mouth open on Louis’s cheek, temple pressed to her sweaty shoulder as they dance. _I’ve never felt this way before_ , she wants to say as her head lolls, face eventually hiding in the perspiration-slick junction of Louis’s neck. Her hands find the deceitfully soft curve of Louis’s hips as she gyrates closer, movements getting filthy and exaggerated as Beyonce’s “Baby Boy” comes on over Veronica’s bluetooth speakers. 

Louis reaches for Harry’s waist with one hand, untucking her shirt so that she could easily find skin, if that were what she’s looking for. Maybe she is. “I wouldn’t be doing this sober,” she murmurs against Harry’s brow, and Harry feels like she's going to throw up, but she _can’t_ pull away, she wants Louis too close, she’s going to allow this whole thing to hurt her, she’s so desperate for whatever scraps Louis is willing to throw her way. 

“Then you should stop,” Harry says unconvincingly, voice shaking as she presses closer, the whole of her skin feeling like a lie, like a betrayal. As her fingers card up the back of Louis’s pixie cut, she manages to ask, “What about Lauren?” 

“What?” Louis asks, pulling back to look at Harry, eyes so wide and bloodshot and blue and beautiful that Harry’s probably in love with her because if it hurts this badly, it must be love, right? There’s no other explanation for the way this feels. Like being choked, like having your insides ripped out through a tiny incision in your chest. So big and full and terrible and wonderful, all at once. “What _about_ Lauren?” Louis asks, like she's genuinely confused. 

And Harry can’t make herself say her name again, so she just swallows thickly, throat clicking over a miserable ball of unshed tears, hot and angry and confused. “I just...I said you should stop,” is what she manages to force out, even though it’s not what she means at all. The booze and her feelings distort it halfway out her throat, but she doesn't have time to correct it or explain before Louis’s eyes are getting wide. 

She backs away sharply, jamming her hands into her pockets and stumbling, stricken. “God, sorry, Harry, you’re right, m’so sorry, god, I’m drunk, and I…fuck. I’m just sorry,” she babbles, shaking her head, combing her small, lovely hands through her hair (she has scabs on the knuckles of one hand like she punched a wall, and Harry wants to grab her wrist and kiss them, wants to say, _wait, no, I don’t want you to leave me, I didn’t mean that_ ).But Louis’s already disappearing away from her, like smoke, like a fading baseline. Harry lunges to grab her wrist, but before she can make contact, Louis’s gone, weaving between people, rotating steadily outward, and Harry stands still, hands at her sides, aching. 

—-

Sometime between “Just Dance” and “In the Zone,”Nyla pushes Perrie into the pool in all her clothes, and it triggers a chain reaction of sorts. After that initial, shrieking plunge, it’s like the dance scene of _It’s a Wonderful Life,_ with everyone cannonballing in, jumping one after the other. Harry follows upon seeing Louis pin-wheeling in after Veronica, always drawn in like a fish hooked through the lip. She’s an idiot about it and doesn't bother peeling off a single layer first, just launches the whole of her body, shorts and shirt, right in. 

Harry resurfaces near Normandi, who’s screaming so loudly about the cold that Harry’s ears are ringing. As she treads water and desperately attempts to catch her breath, she sees Lauren hike herself up onto the stairs and peel her wet shirt off before spinning it around her head like a lasso and chucking it. Then her bra comes off, and _that_ causes chain reaction number two: tits out, slicked in chlorine. 

Harry can’t breathe: there are so many tits, just tits everywhere. Tits of all colors and sizes, all gloriously soft and pretty-looking, and even if they hang unevenly or have big areolas, she realizes that she thinks they’re beautiful because she’s gay, apparently, so fucking gay. Everyone here has perfectly imperfect tits, and she should really stop staring, and _yet._ She feels like she’s drowning in denim, so she heads to the side of the pool, hanging there awkwardly with one arm like some sort of lame crustacean while she kicks out of her shorts, which she tosses up onto the pavement as she gasps for air, thinking of tits, trying not to think of tits. As she moves on to struggle out of her shirt, sputtering in the frigid water, Perrie shoots her an incredulous expression and propels herself over, looking like some elegant drunk mermaid. “Oh, my god, that _cannot_ be comfortable,” she scoffs, reaching out, hooking a finger, and tugging at Harry’s bra. “C’mon, no one cares if your nips show, we’re all girls.” 

Harry has lost her eloquence to the cold and to the vodka, so it might come out a little wrong when she blurts, “ _Some_ of us care, like, the gay ones.” 

Perrie’s eyes get wide and then, shockingly, offended. “Harry! I didn’t think you were the sort to get, like, prejudiced about—”

“What?! Oh, god, m’not,” she scrambles to explain, but then Louis, of all people, swoops in to save her, standing beside the pool, having gotten out sometime after diving in.

She’s glistening, drips coursing down her soft waist, hair a wreck of darkness across her brow as she says, “Don’t worry about it, either of you.” She's holding her arm across her chest to obscure her nipples, and Harry cannot stop staring at the curves of flesh pushing out from the pressure.

Louis’s tits are softer and smaller than Harry would have expected, not the firm, biteable curves that she’s spent months imagining but something Louis can cover with her arm, press in toward her breastbone so they flatten out, mushy and delicious, and Harry _hates_ herself for noticing. She thinks someone else would call Louis _saggy,_ some asshole straight boy, maybe, but Harry can’t stop staring wistfully at that press of flesh under Louis’s forearm, wishing that she could touch, could _worship._ “Need a hand out?” Louis asks, watching Harry struggle, raising an eyebrow and swaying as she crouches. She’s clearly drunk but also coherent enough to be amused, to _notice_ Harry floundering and raise her eyebrows at it, smirking. “C’mon, gimme an arm,” she orders, and Harry complies. Louis uses all her strength to haul her out, and it’s an ordeal, but it happens. 

And there Harry lies, back scraping on the wet cement, chest heaving in time with her breaths. She tries to make sense of what’s happening around her, but things are moving too fast. The world is spinning like she’s on the tilt-o-whirl, everything turning into a melted crayon blur: Veronica’s backyard; the gray-blue sky, too light-polluted for stars; Louis’s face, smiling but concerned, eyes dark. “Ugh,” Harry hisses, head lolling as she presses her cheek against concrete. It’s cool and grounding but not enough. “M’drunk.” 

“Me, too,” Louis admits, gently cupping Harry’s face for a moment before she lets go. “You know, you shouldn’t let Perrie pressure you...you don’t have to take your bra off if you don’t want to.” 

“It’s not...not the bra,” Harry explains, tears springing to her eyes as she forces herself to sit up, body all heavy and tingly at once. Her stomach lurches, but she doesn’t throw up, she just closes her eyes against the relentless reel of the universe, leaning into Louis helplessly as she reaches around her own back and pops the clasp on her bra. “See? I don’t care about that, it’s not that, it’s _you_ ,”she confesses pitifully, sniffling. “It’s hard...it’s—” 

“Oh, fuck,” Louis curses, pulling away as Harry’s bra straps slide over her shoulders and her tits fall out, pool-wet, nipples drawn tight. She feels like they’re too small to mean anything, to make a difference, but Louis’s recoiling, scrambling to stand up, face in her hands. “Put your clothes on, Harry,” she mumbles, rubbing the heels of her hands into her eyes. “I’m, like, m’too drunk to be around you. We need Ronnie.” 

She disappears, presumably to find Veronica, but that alone is too much for Harry to keep inside her head. She flops back down, eyes shut tight against the darkness as she just listens. To girls shrieking, laughing, jumping on each other, to Lauren’s _melodious fucking voice_ cutting through the night to propose a game of chicken, and where’s Louis? They should wait for her. She loves a good game of chicken. 

Harry’s crying a little bit by the time Veronica finds her, sitting herself cross-legged by the pool close enough to pull Harry's wet head into her lap. She can feel her sopping curls dripping onto Veronica’s tights, but she doesn't seem to mind, which makes Harry just cry _harder._ Veronica always seems so steely and aloof, and here she is, laying her cool, dry palms on Harry’s flushed cheeks, reaching behind her back to snap her bra again, talking gently. “Sweet girl,” she coos, tucking some hair behind her ear. “You need water.” 

“I need _love,”_ Harry slurs, hiccuping. “M’human, and I need to be loved, just like that Smiths song.” 

“Sure, but you also need water. And to put your tits away. And to get into some dry clothes, _Jesus_.” 

Harry can’t argue with any of those things, so she allows Veronica to help her to her feet and gently usher her into the house through the fogged-up sliding glass door. They pass Louis on the way, and Harry keeps her eyes carefully averted. “You got her?” Louis asks, sounding worried, and Veronica nods, hands firm on Harry’s waist. 

“Yes, I’ve got your precious cargo, Tomlinson,” she chides. 

And Harry’s too busy feeling miserable for being so drunk that Veronica and Louis have to _discuss her_ like they're her _parents_ to consider what the phrase “precious cargo” even means. 

The music is still playing inside, oddly eerie as it echoes off the marble walls now that no one’s in here, the shrieks and splashes from the backyard sounding muffled, far away. Harry’s weaving, so Veronica sighs and loops an arm around her wet waist, guiding her up the stairs very slowly and carefully, hand clenched on the banister to stabilize them both. “Harry fucking Styles,” she sighs. “If you puke on my stairs, I'm making your drunk ass clean it up.” 

“M’not gonna puke,” Harry mutters, even though she just painstakingly finished swallowing a mouthful of frothy spit. “Promise,” she adds, hoping it’s not hollow. 

“You can,” Veronica tells her. “Just...you know, wait until we’re at a toilet.” 

They make it to Veronica’s room, and Harry miraculously doesn’t lose her stomach. She collapses onto a beanbag chair the second she arrives, and it smells comfortingly like weed and incense smoke. Veronica’s windows have swaths of fabric hanging from them, and there’s a painting on the ceiling of the symbols of the zodiac and some constellations, crystals on the shelves, a bowl with ashes by the unmade canopy bed. “Whoa,” she marvels, looking around. “This is cool...very Nancy from _The Craft_.” 

Veronica rolls her eyes and hands Harry a water bottle. “Drink this entire thing,” she instructs, ignoring the rest. 

Harry chugs half of it, aware that her wet hair is making the beanbag all gross and sodden. She hopes Veronica doesn't mind too much. “Did you paint the ceiling yourself?” she asks, gesturing vaguely above her. 

“I did,” Veronica confirms, sitting gingerly on the edge of her bed, still watching Harry like she’s worried that she might explode. To be safe, she grabs a wastepaper basket near the side of her bed and pushes it across the floor with her toe so that it’s in puke range. Harry appreciates the gesture, even though she’s already starting to feel better. “I did all the art in here, actually.” 

Harry takes it in. A bulletin board with lots of tiny tacked-up sketches, mostly anime and stuff from comic books but also gorgeously rendered ballpoint pen sketches of celebrities, of Veronica’s friends, Louis included. She also notices that the wall behind her bed is tagged with spray paint, big, loose stretches of color, everything angled and lovely and edgy. There are skater stickers and concert tickets taped to the mirror but also postcards with doodles, all in Veronica’s scratchy style. “You’re really good,” she tells her, meaning it. She shakily takes another messy sip of water. “A really good artist.” 

“Thank you,” Veronica say. She pauses, regarding Harry with an unreadable expression, brows drawn and half-raised at the same time, lips pursed. Harry balks in the harsh glow of it, wondering what the fuck she’s thinking, why she feels so scrutinized and _burnt_ by it. “You know that I’m bisexual, right?” Veronica asks then, and it seems like such a fucking nonsequitur that Harry nearly falls right off the beanbag, zapped straight from the sky by a bolt of fucking _lightning_. 

“You...what?!” she gasps, shaking her head and regretting it, the motion making her dizzy all over again. “You are?” Harry isn’t thinking clearly, but she wonders if this _isn’t_ a friendly confession, but something more complex and loaded, a way for Veronica to gently tell her that not only is Louis dating Lauren, but that she’s also dating _her,_ that they’re in some happy-gay-kinky-poly triad, and Harry’s pitiful and naive for never noticing _and_ for thinking that she had any sort of chance with Louis’s affections in the first place. 

“I am,” Veronica says, nodding solemnly. “It sort of sucks to be any sort of gay at Catholic school, so I tend to not date girls that often or to talk about it much there. People know, though...Louis, of course, and Nyla, but it’s not, like…as important to my identity as their sexualities are to them? But I am...bi, I mean.” 

“Why are you telling me this?” Harry asks, and it comes out sharper than she intended it. It’s not her fault; she feels exposed, flayed open, and she’s started to shiver so noticeably that Veronica gets up, heads into her attached bathroom, and turns on the shower for her. Harry watches, teeth chattering noisily. 

“I thought you might want to know?” Veronica tells Harry when she comes back, eyes curiously, _knowingly_ narrowed, like she can see right into Harry’s sad, drunk soul. Like she _knows_ everything about her. “Just...you’re not alone, there are other options out there in the world. That's all.” 

Harry’s suddenly crying without even realizing it. “M’cold,” she announces through sniffles, and Veronica nods at her, looking sympathetic and annoyed at the same time, like a cooler, older sister who doesn’t want to deal with tears but who also remembers what it’s like to feel pain, or whatever. Harry hates how annoying she's being, hates the way that everyone can _see through her,_ peer through her layers and pick her apart and label her insecurity, her longing, her pathetic, unrequited crush. She’s so obvious, but she doesn't know how to stop it. It’s just the truth. 

“Shower’s warm,” Veronica tells her without mentioning the crying, holding the door to the bathroom open. “Finish that water bottle, and I’ll get some clothes you can borrow.” 

Harry stumbles to the bathroom after gratefully choking down the last of the water. Once the door is locked behind her, she’s not surprised to see more marble and gold and honey-warm white, all glistening and pristine-looking. She feels too dirty for Veronica’s fancy house, so she shamefully strips down, wet underwear and bra pooling into a little black pile on the bathmat as she kicks her way out of them. They mock her as she remembers how she dressed tonight with _intention,_ how she was _trying_ to impress Louis, preparing in case something happened. It’s so embarrassing to think about now that it turns her stomach, and she whips around to the shell-shaped sink to cup her hands and drink more water right out of the tap, lest she vomit over all this marble. 

Louis has a girlfriend and will never return her feelings. Worst of all, she _knows_ what those feelings are and _pities_ her. Has sent her up here with Veronica to have a nice, patronizing sexuality chat, like it might soothe the impossible sting of unrequited love and humiliation. 

The water is hot and steamy, and she shudders as it falls around and on top of her, turning her skin pink. Veronica has really nice toiletries, a pink salt scrub and some African black soap body wash, but Harry’s too mortified and clumsy to feel comfortable using them, so she hopes the water will be enough to scour the night’s pain and self-loathing _off her._ She stands under the spray and cries, shoulders shaking as she compares herself to Lauren and Veronica in countless ways. They’ve got better tits than she does, they’re better dancers, they’re older and therefore cooler, they’re not so tall that they’re awkward, they’re not shapeless, they don’t seem perpetually sloppy and soup-stained no matter how hard they _try_ to look put together, not like _she_ does, always marred somehow, bad at holding her liquor, at coordination, at flirting. She cries and cries until her eyes are puffy and there are no more tears left inside her body to cry out, and when she finally shuts the water off and steps outside, she feels drunk but not dangerously drunk anymore. Just tired and achey and dizzy-numb.

“Took you long enough,” Veronica gripes when she emerges, her head cocked, hair a little fluffier in the steam. 

“Thanks,” Harry says sheepishly as she tucks her towel tighter around her body, self-conscious for having taken up so much _space_ in Veronica’s evening. “For waiting but also, like, for letting me use your shower and for taking care of me and dealing with my bullshit and everything.” 

“To be honest, there are a _lot_ of people downstairs, so I don't mind an excuse to come up to my room and be alone. Louis knows that, so this wasn’t a favor, it was mutualism,” she explains. Harry notices that she's lit up a cigarette and is carefully blowing the smoke out a crack in her bedside window, tapping the ashes of the glowing butt into an abalone shell on her thigh. “So no worries.” 

“Well,” Harry mumbles. “I appreciate it.” 

“Here are some sweats and a shirt I think Louis left here a while ago? It’s not _mine_ , obviously,” Veronica sniffs, holding it up by the side and gesturing to the cut-out sleeve to demonstrate. “But you can be in charge of getting it back to her.” Her voice is even, but her dark eyes are careful and searching in a way that makes Harry’s heart clench and her stomach flip uncomfortably. She’s too drunk and weary of overthinking every _little_ thing tonight, so she chooses not to press on it. It’s just one of many issues to obsess over in the morning. 

“Okay,” she sighs, hand tingling as she takes Louis’s shirt from Veronica, feeling both guilty-dirty and stupidly thrilled at the idea of wearing her clothes. It might be as close as she ever gets to touching her, and part of her still _wants_ that, even if it’s pitiful and embarrassing and never, ever going to happen. “Can I have, like…a hoodie to wear over it, though?” 

Veronica nods and tosses her a school crewneck bearing the St. Catherine’s coat of arms on it. “You can _have_ this, god knows I never wear it. Actually, god doesn't know, psych,” she laughs, crossing herself mockingly. Even though Harry isn’t Catholic, the ease with which Veronica just _dismisses_ religious ritual makes her heart leap in shock. She wonders if she’ll ever grow to a place where she has _conviction_ , where she doesn't doubt and obsess and worry so profoundly that the only way she feels like she can function is if she drinks too much or hides.

“Thanks again,” she says, pulling it over her head, inhaling the smell of weed and incense, the scent of everything else in Veronica’s room. “Are you ready to, um, go back?” she asks then, hating the pang of anxiety she feels in her chest at the prospect of facing a party she’s been absent from for a while, at seeing Louis and Lauren again, probably tangled up on the couch together, making out or something horrible like that. She braces herself, glad that Veronica’s there with her, hard and soft at the same time, like she always is. 

“Yup, and I got you, don't worry,” she says flatly, like she’s reading Harry’s mind, stubbing out her cigarette in the shell after setting it down on her bedside table. She turns to Harry, raising her arms, and before Harry can make sense of what she's doing, Veronica comes at her from _both sides,_ somehow, and hugs her. It’s shocking, but it’s warm and good, and she melts into it, a sudden and unexpected rush of new tears rising in her throat. “Hey, it gets easier, okay?” Veronica assures her, voice muffled in Harry’s wet hair. 

“What does?” Harry asks, unable to believe that being in love with your friend who has a girlfriend or possibly _two_ girlfriends certainly doesn't _seem_ like the sort of thing that gets better. 

“All of it, Catholic high school,” Veronica tells her, patting Harry’s back awkwardly and pulling away, indicating that she's held on perhaps a tad too long, so Harry lets her go, shivering. 

“Okay, party,” she says, and they head down the stairs together, loosely arm in arm. 

No one really notices the moment they come back, which is sort of a relief. The music’s still playing, but it’s softer and chiller, Alicia Keys’s first record humming quietly away, or maybe Nelly Furtado, Harry can’t quite make it out over the chatter of the other girls and the nervous pound of blood in her own ears. “Ronnie and Harry, oi oi!” Louis cheers as she sees them, adorably flushed and damp-haired as she looks up from a card game with Jesy. “We took it upon ourselves to fight over the downstairs showers and break out the hookah, hope that’s alright.” 

“Good, it smells delicious,” Veronica calls, twisting her hair up into a bun. “Should I order some takeout?” 

“ _Please,_ who do you think I am? Pizza _and_ Chinese are already on the way...we went over this, you host, I take care of food,” Louis explains, disentangling herself from between Lauren and Nyla and padding over on bare feet, abandoning her cards. “Feeling better?” she asks Harry gently, finally looking her dead in the eye for the first time since she and Veronica came back. It makes Harry’s stomach drop, hot and painful, but it’s also weirdly reassuring. To know that Louis notices, that she cares that she's bloodshot. 

“She didn't even puke,” Veronica says, sounding impressed. “You should have more water, though, lemme get you a glass. And do not touch the hookah, it can make you nauseous _without_ alcohol,” she tells Harry.

“Don’t worry,” Harry reassures her as Veronica effortlessly sashays to the kitchen. “I’m not putting anything else poisonous into my body tonight.” 

If Veronica hears her, she doesn’t indicate it, leaving Harry alone with Louis and frozen in place, _I’ll never love someone the way that I love you_ floating out from the bluetooth speakers, a haunting reminder. Louis looks at the floor and nervously tucks a wet chunk of hair behind her ear before blurting, “Harry, I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable when we were dancing. M’really sorry if I did.” 

“You don’t...uncomfortable isn't what you make me,” Harry scoffs then, suddenly reminded that even though she feels better, she hasn't sobered up or anything. She’s still _very_ likely to make some _very_ bad decisions, to reveal too much. She coughs, and Louis looks up at her, eyes so insanely blue that she wants to scream, to break something, to blink and appear home again in her own bed, away from temptation and reminders of all the stuff that she can’t _have,_ burning up under her Miley poster instead _. “_ I’m glad m’here. I’m having so much fun, and it’s great to hang with everyone...I just drank too much.” 

“Okay,” Louis says, looking at her too hard, hard enough that she withers under the intensity of it. “I just don’t want you to feel pressured to do anything. Drink or—”

Harry doesn't want to know what she’s going to say, so she just shakes her head, reaches up, and puts her hand right over Louis’s mouth. She shocks herself in doing it, the heat of Louis’s skin under her palm a maddening, perfect, horrible thing that makes her drop her hand as if she was burnt. “Stop, don't apologize, you and Veronica are great hosts, and I’m just an idiot, okay?” she stumbles through.

Louis shakes her head. “You’re not an idiot, just...confusing.” 

Right then, Veronica comes back with water, shoving a whole giant-sized Fiji bottle into Harry’s hand. “More,” she orders, gaze flitting back and forth between the two of them.

Harry uncaps the bottle, takes a sip, and thinks about how absurd it is that _Louis_ thinks _she’s_ the confusing one. 

\---

At some point, Veronica drags out blankets and sleeping bags and puts on _Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion._ Harry has seen it before, and she's exhausted and drunk, so she passes out ten minutes in, right there on the floor while Louis sits but a few feet away, sharing a bowl of salt and vinegar chips with Nyla. It’s amazing that Harry can sleep at _all_ , knowing that Louis’s so _close_. She’s acutely aware of her presence as she nods off, of her crunching mouthfuls and of her high, lovely laugh, but it’s been _such_ a long fucking day that nothing could keep her from sleeping at this point. 

Her eyes are heavy, the sounds of the movie fade into an indistinct chatter, and Harry allows Louis’s breathing and rustling to soothe her instead of twist up her gut. Then just like that, she’s gone. 

She sleeps surprisingly deeply, given the fact that she’s on the floor of someone else’s _house_ and had an emotionally traumatic night and is wearing Louis’s _shirt_ , which theoretically should have the power alone to haunt her dreams. Usually sleepovers make Harry restless or prone to nightmares, but she's so groggy when she wakes up that she totally forgets she’s not at home in the first place, and it isn’t until she sits up and blinks and looks around that she remembers she’s at Veronica’s. Her eyes feel sticky, her head _aches,_ she’s fucking _freezing_ , and she has to pee, which makes sense because one of her most concrete memories of last night (aside from Louis breaking her heart and kissing Lauren in the driveway, which is burnt into her memory in _stark, agonizing detail forever)_ is of Veronica force-feeding her bottles of water while she cried. 

It makes her feel sick to remember, so she pushes the thought away and instead tries to recall where the bathroom is down here. Perrie and Jesy are sleeping on the couch, Lauren in a recliner, glitter makeup still shimmery on her cheeks. Harry scans the floor and thinks she can pick out the rest of the girls, too, everyone save for Louis, anyway. It’s only when she shifts back and kicks off her covers to stand that she realizes with _horror_ where Louis is, she’s actually sleeping _right behind Harry,_ solid and warm and snoring gently. And, _fuck,_ she looks so soft. Softer than she usually does, lips parted around exhaled sleep-breaths, hair mussed up, a little wavy from having dried wet after a shower. Harry drinks in the sight for a few moments before tearing her eyes away, wondering if she can make it to the bathroom without waking her up. 

She painstakingly extricates herself, shivering, her heart pounding as she tries to stand as quietly as possible. She feels like she got caught doing something terrible, even though she _knows_ that she hasn’t, that sleeping side by side or stealing a few moments of idle admiration in the half-dark aren't _crimes._ She hurries to the bathroom on numb feet, pees one of the longest pees in her life, and desperately drinks some water from the sink with her cupped hands, all the while trying to figure out what to do. But every possibility that isn’t bolting right back to where she was and snuggling up against Louis becomes increasingly unlikely because she’s _so cold that she can hardly think._ Her fingers and toes are fast becoming icy and sensationless, her teeth are chattering, and if she were a better person, maybe, she would try and find somewhere less compromising to sleep and get warm, but she’s not, apparently. She’s cold, and she wants her sleeping bag back, and it’s not like she _chose_ to sleep this close to Louis, _Louis_ is the one who bedded down next to Harry, _Louis_ is the one who’s comfortable with the proximity, apparently. She shouldn't feel bad or guilty or like she’s taking advantage as she crawls back into the warmth beside her, trembling so hard that she’s making herself nauseous. It’s not her _fault._

Louis is deliciously hot against her, the burn of her skin palpable even between layers of fleece and nylon, so Harry cements her body to her back, gritting her teeth to stop them from rattling loudly enough to wake her. It doesn’t work, though. Louis yawns and shifts, and Harry fucking _freezes_ in response, heart ricocheting into her throat until Louis shifts closer, offering some of her covers to Harry, shortening the distance between their bodies by clumsily yanking out the bunched bedding keeping them from touching. Instinctively, stupidly, Harry draws closer. “Shit, you’re freezing,” Louis mumbles. “C’mere.” 

And that’s _explicit_ permission, so Harry tries hard to just accept this situation at face value and take what she’s being offered without obsessing or doubting. She settles close so that her chest is pressed up against Louis’s spine, arm awkwardly folded on top of both of their rib cages since she’s afraid to actually, like, _spoon_ Louis lest that come across as too intimate. Most troubling of all, however, is the fact that Louis’s glorious ass is right there, brushing against the tops of Harry’s thighs, and if she gets any closer, it’ll be pressed into her pubic bone. Knowing that it’s a _possibility_ is enough to send her reeling, so when Louis reaches over and tugs Harry’s arm gently around her own midsection, she nearly flatlines. It’s _so much touching,_ more than she’s ever touched Louis before, perhaps, and all here under the heat of their unzipped sleeping bags, like a secret in this crowded room.

She can’t _believe_ that Louis’s cuddling her while the other girls are scattered around them, stirring and lightly snoring, that _any_ second one of them could wake up and find them nestled together like spoons in a drawer. Louis curled up in the arms of a girl who is _not_ her girlfriend. It’s terrifying at the same time that it’s thrilling, surreal in a way that almost makes it feel like it’s not happening at all. Harry wonders if this is reality, or if she _died_ last night and this is heaven. Or if she’s still dreaming. It’s possible that she invented this fantasy out of want, and she’ll actually wake up to find Louis snuggled up with Lauren instead, their bodies pressed flush on the recliner while Harry watches from the floor with a broken heart. 

She doesn’t wake up, though, and she can hear herself breathing, which mean she's probably still alive. She’s pretty sure that Louis has fallen back asleep, her inhalations measured and even under the splay of Harry's arm, so she wills herself to relax, to _enjoy_ whatever closeness Louis has decided to allow her, even if it’s probably coming from a place of sleep-delirious friendliness or even charity. It’s a challenge not to hold her breath and tense up, but she’s sleepy enough to be lulled in by the warmth of Louis’s body, how _soft_ she feels _,_ and in a few minutes, she’s drifting in and out of sleep again. She half-dreams that she and Louis are on the _Titanic_ or some other giant boat poised to sink, trying to fit on the same iceberg. _It’s fine if I cuddle her,_ Harry thinks, squeezing her closer, inhaling from her back as her brain struggles against sleep to rationalize. _We’re gonna die if I don’t, it’s not weird, it’s totally fine. I’m just keeping us from freezing to death._

She's successfully convinced herself of this reality, so as she dips in and out of sleep and drowsiness, she really melts into the embrace: breathing in time with Louis, loving how the neat tuck of her waist fits so easily and perfectly under her arm. Harry's in danger of fully knocking out again when Louis, who has been twitching and moving a little bit in a way that led Harry to believe she, too, was sleeping, _deliberately presses back into her,_ pushing her ass into the cradle of her hips so that they’re flush even there, hand shifting tentatively to move so that it’s closer to Harry’s, under the curl of her palm. It’s an unmistakable shift, and Harry’s suddenly wide awake again, heart pounding. 

Louis must be able to feel it. _Harry_ can feel it, the way that she’s almost vibrating in time with the violent thud of her pulse, which is resounding right against Louis’s back. She waits for Louis to ask her what the fuck her problem is, but she doesn’t. She just turns her hand in such a way that their fingers brush before interlacing, and, _fuck,_ oh, _god,_ Louis’s holding her hand while her girlfriend sleeps on the recliner and the other girls surround them, and Harry should _stop this,_ she should feel _horrified,_ but she’s sleepy and hungover and delirious and _weak._ There are only so many times she can remove herself from situations that hurt, only so many times that she can choose self-preservation over self-destruction, and it’s so fucking _hard_ to do the right thing when the girl she loves is gently, gently, _gently_ thumbing over her knuckles with the sweetest, most idle touch. 

Almost subconsciously, Harry returns it, eyes screwed shut and heart speeding like she’s running a race. Still, she can make her hands tender, even if the rest of her body is locked up. She uses her thumb to rub Louis’s wrist with the lightest touch, and as she does it, Louis inhales sharply, which makes Harry’s fucking heart stop, body tensing. After a second, she relaxes again, so Harry resumes, and then, miraculously, they just _do_ this for a while in the quiet dawn light. Touch hands without speaking or looking at each other. Chaste, fleeting brushes, fingers against palms, thumbs over wrists, both of them beginning to sweat a bit, both of their pulses speeding too much for Harry to even _wonder_ if this is some weird, platonic friend thing. It’s _not,_ and terrifyingly, she _knows_ this. 

Louis’s coming onto her. Or she’s coming onto Louis. Or they’re coming onto each _other,_ the touch intimate even if it’s the softest, most innocent thing. 

Maybe that’s why Harry’s getting so _fucking wet_ while they play with each other’s fingers. Louis's skin is so delicate, even if she has callouses, everything smooth and crepe-papery and lovely and perfect, her hands much smaller than Harry’s, their fingers notching together like they were built for it. On top of that, she _smells_ so good, the thrilling musk and spice of her filling Harry’s lungs, clouding her sleep-worn judgment as she gently, carefully razes her nails over the back of Louis’s hand. And even though it’s _so_ prudent and light, it _still_ feels so bold. _Oh, my god,_ she thinks, her whole universe reduced to these words, over and over again, like a prayer, like confession. _Oh, my god, please please please don’t stop._

She shifts her weight a bit closer, fitting their bodies together more snugly, and as she does it, she _feels_ Louis’s pulse pick up under her fingers. _Fuck,_ she thinks, toes curling against her sleeping bag, legs sweating because there’s so much heat and humidity building in her borrowed joggers. She can hardly remember being cold before, everything is so fucking _hot_ right now, close and claustrophobic and maddening. _Louis, your girlfriend is in this room,_ she thinks frantically, _our friends are right here, they could wake up and see us_ , but even then, she just _can’t_ make herself even pretend that she wants it to stop. After all, they’re not _actually_ doing anything bad together. And what if Louis and Lauren are open? What if Louis has lots of girlfriends? What if Harry could be one of many, and this is the invitation? Harry’s busy trying to imagine if sharing is something she could do if it meant getting to hold Louis like this and touch her fingers, when suddenly, Louis decidedly rolls over to face her. 

She presses their brows together fiercely, eyes such a hot shade of blue around the blown center of her pupil. “Harry,” she whispers, sleep-breath ghosting across Harry’s lips, making her mouth water. Her gaze keeps flicking between Harry’s lips and her eyes, and Harry’s coming apart in longing, thighs pressing together, stomach in knots. “Can I kiss you?” Louis murmurs in a low scrape of a whisper, breath shuddering out of her, lashes fluttering beautifully against her cheek. 

_Oh,_ Harry thinks, hearing the words but not able to process them, everything feeling far away, under water. She wants to say yes, she wants to so _fucking_ badly, and before she can remind herself of why she _shouldn’t,_ it’s just falling out. “Yes,” she breathes, licking her lips reflexively. _Yes yes yes._

And then Louis’s looking at her lips, just as Harry looks endlessly at hers, pink and bitten and so soft-looking, so _close_ right now, closer and closer, their breath mingling as Louis inches in. 

She takes her time, tilting forward and back and checking Harry’s eyes for hesitance each incremental moment, and Harry’s fucking _salivating_ by the time she realizes that it’s actually going to happen, the whole of her body yearning desperately toward this single moment of long, long hungered-for contact. 

“Fuck,” Louis whispers, face crumpling as she realizes that Harry isn’t going to pull away or stop her, even if she should. Louis makes a small, cut-off whimper in the back of her throat, pitches forward that final breath between them, and kisses Harry gently, just their lips pressing together, soft and tender, like a pinky promise. Then, because Harry has been waiting for this too long to remember how to stop herself, she surges into it, turning the kiss hard and deep and slick. 

_God._ It’s all she’s wanted since she met Louis, but even then, nothing could have prepared her for it, for how _good_ it is, how absolving and pure and perfect. _Heaven,_ she keeps thinking, the only word she has left save for _Louis, Lou._ She’s in heaven. She’s kissing a _girl_. Kissing _Louis,_ pressing against her soft fucking lips, feeling the give, the slickness, the maddening heat as Louis’s tongue flicks out exploratorily, easing Harry’s mouth open, getting her to split apart under her like two halves of a sliced peach. 

Harry has kissed boys before, but she can’t even remember what is was like because it was _incomparable to this._ Louis whimpering into her mouth, cupping her cheek gently, nipping at her lower lip, both of them trying and failing to stay quiet so as to not wake anyone else up in the room. Harry returns everything as best as she can, licking inside Louis’s mouth, sucking at her tongue, letting her hand rest on the side of her neck where she can feel the wild flutter of her pulse. _Heaven,_ she thinks on a loop, burning up against Louis’s body as they shift close enough that their legs slot together in a way that should feel filthy but instead feels like tectonic plates coming together or perhaps a wave breaking against the shore. Some natural convergence, a thing that was always meant to happen. Here, now, and over and over again for the rest of her life. 

If she doesn't take her sweatpants off, she's gonna pass out, so Harry pulls away long enough to suck in some messy breaths, trying to stay quiet as she slurs, “Hold on, m’dying, need to get out of my sweatshirt, pants.” 

“Fuck,” Louis murmurs as she lets go, watching with pupils blown wide as Harry shimmies out of her borrowed clothes as quietly and discreetly as possible, the cool air hitting the fever of her skin as she carelessly tosses them aside. “You’re wearing my shirt,” Louis marvels, sounding awed as she reaches out and tentatively touches Harry’s side through the cut-out sleeve. “Jesus, it’s like you’re _trying_ to kill me.” 

Harry thinks it’s an absurd thing for Louis to say when she’s the one who’s been slowly murdered for _months_ by every single little thing Louis does, but she can’t make herself say that when she has the option of kissing Louis instead, so she just dives back in, desperate for more, afraid that Louis will put an end to this storm if they stop long enough for her to rethink it. 

They kiss for another minute or so, no words exchanged, just hands over skin, lips and teeth and tongues, rough one second, soft and sweet-tender the next. _Heaven, heaven, heaven,_ Harry thinks in time with her own thudding heartbeat, so loud and steady that she _almost_ misses the sound of someone stirring on the couch, the leather squeaking as a body rolls over. 

They freeze, staring at each other, eyes wide and locked in tacit shock, in _fear._ Harry’s stomach knots up and her hands bite into where they’re locked on Louis’s arms, and it takes her a full three seconds to let go, to peel her tight fingers from Louis’s skin and force herself to roll over and away from her, heart pounding as Perrie, it seems, sits up and yawns, stretching. “Ugh,” she announces. “I’m so fucking hungover.” 

“Me, too,” Louis says, sitting up. It sounds like she’s going for nonchalance, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand, shaking her hair out. Harry lies there with her eyes screwed tight imagining it, too terrified to move and look, to pull off anything other than the absolute rush of panic that she’s drowning in. She just has to pretend to sleep until it passes. 

Nyla is the next one up, roused by Louis and Perrie’s hushed chattering about the night, the movie, the drinks. She’s so loud and unapologetic about her grumpiness that there’s no _way_ anyone can sleep through it, so Harry pretends to wake up with the rest of them, faking a drowsy blink just in time to see Lauren crawl out of the recliner and press a kiss to Louis’s head on the way to the bathroom. “Morning, babes,” Louis says sleepily, patting her hand. 

And Harry flops back down, so suddenly dumb that she can hardly feel the impact as she tumbles earthward from heaven. 

—-

The morning is a blur. Harry _can’t_ stop thinking about the mad, impossible heat and passion with which Louis kissed her. Louis’s hands in her hair, on her skin. Louis noticing that she was wearing her _shirt,_ which she’s _still_ wearing, guilty and shameful as any giant red Hester Prynne A. Harry feels like the scarlet fucking letter, alone in this room full of friends, Louis refusing to meet her eyes. 

“Hey,” Louis says as the group dwindles, Jesy and Perrie opting to head over to Lucky Boy for breakfast burritos, Veronica to her bedroom to escape hosting duties and sleep in her own bed, Normandi, Nyla, and Lauren to the backyard to split a joint. Harry freezes, shocked that Louis isn’t accompanying them, not prepared to spend _any_ time alone with her. She’s not ready to have her heart broken, not _again,_ not after all these smaller hairline fractures. “I’m sorry about…well, m’sorry,” is what Louis says once everyone’s gone, rubbing the back of her neck uncomfortably, eyes cast at the floor. “We should really talk about stuff soon, but not when people are coming in and out of the house. I need time and, like, space to think.” 

“Um,” Harry croaks, crossing her arms, lips tingling. “Do I have a choice?” _Not when your_ girlfriend _is coming in and out of the house,_ she thinks bitterly, heart clenching. 

“Of course you do,” Louis tells her, the blue of her irises a hurt, dark shade of blue for the split-second that Harry sees it. “I’m just saying that privacy would be good. Real privacy, like on the drive home.” 

“I’m getting an uber,” Harry decides then, shaking her head fiercely, chest tight and windpipe closed up. She’s gonna cry, she’s barely holding it together right _now_ , and the last place she wants to lose it is sitting shotgun, nowhere to run, nowhere to escape whatever horrible shit Louis is inevitably going to tell her. _Listen, that was a mistake, I wasn’t thinking, you don’t mean anything to me, you were just a convenient body for me since Lauren wasn’t around._ “I think I need to be away from you for a while,” she admits, and it sticks in her throat, hot and painful. She doesn't _want_ to be away from Louis, not _ever,_ but it doesn't matter because she _can’t_ actually stay close to her right now, not when it hurts this badly. A fist between her lungs, clutching at her solar plexus so tightly that every breath aches, rips through her like fire. Her body feels bruised, and Louis’s presence is like an insistent thumb digging into it, reminding her _you kissed Louis, the thing that you’ve wanted so pathetically, desperately to happen just_ happened, _but not the way you want it to. You will always be second best. Not pretty enough, not experienced enough, not good enough._

“Okay,” Louis whispers, voice thick. She turns away, shoulders hunched, face hidden, and for the briefest moment, Harry wonders if she’s crying before dismissing it. It feels too self-indulgent and arrogant to imagine herself as the sort of girl _anyone_ , let alone someone like _Louis,_ would cry over. _Not pretty enough, not experienced enough, not good enough_ echoes inside her, insistent and cruel. 

But when Louis looks fleetingly over her shoulder at Harry before heading to the bathroom with her backpack of toiletries, her eyes are glistening and red, and Harry’s stomach plummets in shock. “For the record,” Louis sighs wetly, shrugging. “I’m really, really sorry about this.” 

_I am, too,_ Harry thinks, but her mouth is too dry to speak. 

CHAPTER 5

Harry cries and self-deprecatingly reads angsty lesbian YA novels all of Saturday and most of Sunday, decidedly hiding from her sister and ignoring her phone and the texts she’s probably _not_ getting from Louis because Louis probably doesn’t care about her. (Even though she kissed her, _she asked to kiss her!_ That happened, she didn’t imagine it.) She tells her mom that she isn’t feeling well enough for dinner and sneaks a bagel and some fruit snacks out of the pantry and into her room instead, like some scavenger or perhaps a hibernating bear. She’d laugh at herself if she were a character in one of these books or at least roll her eyes at the _drama_ of acting grief-stricken over a high school not-even-romance, but the feeling is so, so real for her in this moment that she just empathizes. Spends hours stuffing Gushers into her mouth and sobbing into her pillow and feeling like these books are _about_ her. 

She finishes _The Bermudez Triangle_ and _Empress of the World,_ and is a few chapters into _Annie on My Mind_ when she realizes that she _has_ to check her phone soon because she needs to touch base with Leanne about her ride to school tomorrow. Her heart is in her throat as she powers it up, and sure enough, there are three missed texts from Louis, which she deletes without reading. She knows it’s fucked up, but she’s _too_ fragile to pretend that she can actually read or respond to Louis right now from a rational place. She feels capable of crying, and probably even more crying, so she’s just gonna hide for a little longer until she feels like a person again. 

As she finds Leanne’s contact, it occurs to her that she could really, _really_ afford to talk to someone who isn’t in theater, someone who knows Louis but doesn't _know_ know her. And Leanne isn’t naturally Harry’s _first_ choice as a confidant, but she doesn't know anyone else well enough, and the more she thinks about it, the more comforting it sounds. Leanne is so rigid, so cut and dried about things, maybe she’ll offer some helpful advice. Or a kick in the pants. Harry _knows_ she needs _something_ other than sugar and mediocre literature. 

_wanna study with me tonight?_ she asks, followed by some sad faces. _could use some big sisterly advice from someone who isn’t my actual big sister._

Leanne must like feeling needed and important because in fifteen minutes, she’s on Harry’s doorstep with two pints of Ben & Jerry’s, a box of tissues, and a pile of John Hughes DVDs. Her hair is pulled back tightly, face a mask of sympathy and determination. “Wow,” Harry stammers, letting her in. “I already feel taken care of.” 

“A boy broke your heart,”Leanne says knowingly, brows knit up, a concerned line between them. “I could tell even over text.” 

Tears spring to Harry’s eyes automatically, and before she can correct Leanne, she's getting attack-hugged by her instead, which just makes her cry harder. “Not exactly,” she sniffles into Leanne’s loose-knit brown cardigan, clutching her back. “It’s a whole…a whole thing. You might wanna sit down.” 

“Oh, no,” Leanne sighs, following Harry into her room and dropping onto the floor cross-legged. “Please don't tell me you’re dating a drug dealer or something.” 

“God! No, it’s not...not like _that,_ ”Harry coughs, wiping her nose and starting in on the tissues already. “Hold on, I’ll tell you everything, lemme just get some spoons for the ice cream.” 

On her trip to the kitchen, she considers that she’s about to _come out_ to Leanne, and that doing so will be, in some ways, the first official _coming out_ of her entire life. She feels like it should seem monumental and important, but it’s just _scary._ She has no reason to believe that Leanne won’t accept her or be supportive; after all, she’s friendly with Louis (and Nyla, even if she somehow doesn't know that Nyla’s gay). If anything, she’ll be overly nice about it in a clueless, Leanne sort of way. Harry logically knows that she has nothing to _actually_ fear, buther heart is pounding in her throat as she heads back into her room with spoons, legs feeling stiff and leaden. 

Leanne has already cracked open her advanced calculus textbook, which she shuts respectfully upon Harry’s arrival. “Okay, we can study later! Therapy time now...spill it, what happened this weekend, and where does he live so I can go break his legs?” 

“Leanne!” Harry gasps, scandalized as she sits on her bed, digging her spoon into the ice cream even though she's pretty sure she’s too nervous to eat it. “I don’t want you to kill this person. They...I love them,” she gets out, collapsing onto her pillow and whimpering. “Her...I love her,” she clarifies, deciding she might as well just fucking _say it_ since it’s not going to get any easier. 

Leanne’s eyes widen as her head cocks, and she nods a few times before resuming her careful veneer of unaffected sympathy. “Okay. I thought you might be sort of bi or something, but I didn’t want to assume.”

“I think...I think I’m mostly gay, actually,” Harry admits, the words thick and foreign in her throat, like another language. It feels weird to say but also good, like a hot rush to her scalp, tingly and powerful. _I’m gay._ She shivers and takes a tentative bite of ice cream. “But yeah, it’s a girl, actually...the heartbreaking thing.” 

Leanne’s eyes get dark and sparkly. “Is it Louis? Are you in love with Louis?” 

Harry groans, dropping the pint of ice cream into her lap to clutch at her face, mortified. She’s _so obvious_ that all it took was Leanne _knowing_ she liked girls to put it together. “Yes, I’m _fucking_ in love with Louis, but she has a girlfriend! We all hung out together this weekend, and I was stupid enough to let myself think that we were flirting! Or that she could like me! _Instead,_ I got drunk and _hooked up with her_ the next morning _while her girlfriend slept on a chair!!!_ In the same _room!”_ she explains in a half-nonsensical rush. “I can’t fucking believe any of it, I feel like m’dying.” 

“Her girlfriend slept on a chair?” Leanne asks after a moment, eyes wide and skeptical, mouth twisted up a bit at the corner. 

“ _That’s_ your takeaway from all of this?” Harry snorts, curling into a ball. “Chair sleeping?” 

“Well, not _just_ chair sleeping! I mean, isn’t it sort of odd to you that she has a girlfriend, but the girlfriend slept on a chair while you and Louis were sleeping together? _I_ think that’s weird. If _I_ was the girlfriend, I would _not_ be comfortable with that,” she declares, crossing her arms. 

Harry hasn't thought about it in these exact terms, but it doesn't _change_ anything, not really. Whether or not Lauren was on the chair doesn't change that she _exists. “_ Well, this girlfriend was.” 

“And look what happened! Louis hooked up with another girl. Boom.” 

“Leanne…what’s your point?” Harry mutters, chest aching. “I don’t know anything about their relationship, really, but it’s a reality. Louis isn't gonna _break up_ with this girl to be with me. She’s, like, supermodel gorgeous and _Brazilian_ or something and probably looks amazing in a bathing suit, I mean, I don't know because I didn’t look, but she’s perfect, okay? No one would ever pick someone like me over someone like her. She’s out of the closet and confident and sexy and everything else I’m not.”

“And yet Louis _still_ made out with _you_ , so what’s _your_ point?” Leanne counters, handing Harry another tissue since the one she's been using is getting pretty ratty and wet, coming apart in bits in her hand. 

“Aren’t you, like, supposed to tell me I’m too good to be the other woman, or something? 

“Huh,” Leanne observes, scooping out a neat spoonful of ice cream and licking it thoughtfully. “You know, if Louis were some asshole dude, then yeah, I probably _would_ be telling you to move on, that you're better than that, and so on. But maybe it’s because she’s a girl or because I know her...that’s not my instinct here, which is fucked up. Shit, I didn’t even _realize_ the weird subconscious double standards I have!” 

“It’s okay,” Harry sighs. “I don’t want to be mad at her, either. I appreciate you talking to me about this stuff regardless, even though you’re straight and all.” 

“Honestly, I’m a little offended you didn’t tell me sooner. You didn’t think I was one of those homophobic Catholic girls at school, did you?” Leanne asks, leaning forward and reaching up with a cold hand to touch Harry’s elbow comfortingly. Nothing she’s saying is perfect, and Harry feels sort of weird about this whole conversation in general, but at the same time, she's really, really glad Leanne’s here, and she's really, really glad she brought ice cream. 

“I didn't think that, not concretely,” Harry explains, feeding herself a clumsy spoonful. “It’s just, like, scary...and awkward? To tell people, even if you know that they’ll be nice about it, because you know you're different, and then _they’re_ gonna know you’re different, and there’s just this…difference there, like, between you. And it sucks.” 

“Well,” Leanne says, cheeks flushing a sudden red as she sits back and picks some fluff off her cardigan. “You’re sort of wrong there. Because I never would have told you before today that I kissed a girl once, in middle school, on a dare. And I liked it. And I would kiss a girl again, maybe, if she…say…looked like Veronica, and I was gay, and that was a thing that actually happened to me.” 

It’s Harry’s turn to fumble a bit, wide-eyed and stunned. “Oh,” she murmurs. “So you’re saying that sometimes it’s not pointing out difference but paving the way for, like…sameness?” 

“Relating is the word, I think...I mean, I wouldn't say that I’m the _same_ as you, I’m not in love with Louis,” Leanne clarifies through a mouthful of ice cream. “But we are, perhaps, not as different as you might think.” 

“Wow, deep. But you wouldn't have to be gay to kiss Veronica,” Harry offers. “You could just…kiss her. Sexuality is fluid and messy and weird. Trust me, I know.” 

“Oh, my god, I am _not_ going to _kiss_ Veronica Malik! She hardly knows I exist, _plus,_ we’re talking about _you_ right now! You and _your_ girl problems, not me and mine. Or the ones I would have if I was actually gay. Which I’m not. Here, have some of this flavor, too,” Leanne babbles, visibly flustered as they trade ice cream cartons. “So, what are you gonna do at school? Has she _said_ anything to you after, like, cheating on her girlfriend and making out with you and all that?”

“No,” Harry mumbles around her spoon, though that’s not quite the truth. She sighs, stabbing the ice cream. “Well, yes. She said she wanted to talk privately, and she apologized. She also texted me three times, but I was too scared to read them, so I deleted them.” 

“Harry!” Leanne shrieks, reaching up and smacking Harry’s arm hard enough that it actually smarts. “You _deleted_ them? _Why?!_ Can you recover them?” 

“Shit! I don't know! I don’t know what to do! I’m distressed! That’s why _you’re_ here, to help me!” Harry whines, burying her head under her pillow and wordlessly groaning. “My phone is on the bedside table...you’re welcome to try and find them but only if you promise not to read them aloud,” she says, voice muffled. 

“I would never,” Leanne assures her, grabbing the phone. There’s a moment of heavy, anxious silence in the room before she sighs and says, “ Harry, you’ve got two more texts from her. Should I—”

“Ugh! Delete them!” Harry yells before she panics in the other direction, devastated by the idea of losing something _else_ from Louis, bits of sand filtering through her fingers, things once close to her disintegrating one by one. “Never mind! Give it here, I’ll read it...with your moral support.” 

“Thank _god,”_ Leanne groans, collapsing onto the floor after tossing the phone up to Harry. “Lemme know if you need help drafting something scathing to send back.” 

Harry’s heart pounds as she reads, scalp burning and prickly, blood rushing in her ears so loudly that can’t even hear Leanne. Her hands are sweaty, and she’s shaky with adrenaline, but she’s feeling _those_ physical things so hard that she doesn’t even have time to properly hurt in a heart-achey way, which might be a blessing. _Harry, i totally understand i overstepped a boundary and i am so so so sorry for that. i get it. and i understand you want space and I will honor that and keep my distance, believe me. i just really would like to talk first, about some things, before school. Doesn't have to be in person, can be FaceTime or over the phone or even text at this point. i just don't want things left unresolved for us before we have to see each other in person. but if you can’t, i get that too. just pleaseeeee just let me know you’re ok. i’m getting worried and feeling horrible and i know this is all my fault, just please. at least let me know you’re ok._ is the first text, followed by the single line, _i really care about you_ with a heart emoji. 

“Why does she have to be so charming and nice,” Harry chokes out through a sudden onslaught of tears, hand tightening around her phone.

“What does it say??!!” Leanne demands, bouncing impatiently where she sits, clutching her spoon in her fist like a shank. 

“She’s really sorry, she understands I need space, she wants to talk, preferably in person, and she’s worried about me,” Harry sniffles, stomach in knots of regret, eyes stinging. “That she supposedly cares about me.” 

“She likes you, it’s official,” Leanne declares. “She’s freaking out, she’s gonna break up with chair-girl, and if you have any self-respect, you will _not_ take the bait. Though trust me, no judgment if you don’t. I’ve dated cheaters before, and the heart wants what it wants...Selena knew what she was talking about.” 

“I don’t think she _likes_ me. I think…I think she feels guilty,” Harry says, rereading the text, letting every word roll over her without really sinking in, lest it burrow too deeply and make her bleed. “What should I say? Should I let her worry? Should I talk to her before school?” 

“Do you _want_ to? Like, let’s strip that down. Under everything you’re feeling, all the layers of bullshit, do you _want_ to talk to her and hear what she has to say? Even if it hurts or doesn't, like, actually bring you clarity? Or are you so pissed and emotional that you don’t want to give her the time of day until you’re 100% ready?” 

Harry doesn't even have to think about it. Her gut clenches, her heart breaks, and she just… _knows._ She knows that even if it’s not healthy or admirable or particularly _kind_ to herself, she’ll _still_ want to talk to Louis. She’ll always want to talk to Louis. “Fuck,” she mumbles, rubbing her face with her hands. “I want to see her...I want to hear what she has to say, even it sucks.” 

“Okay,” Leanne says, handing her back the tissues, nodding. “Then that’s what you tell her.” 

—-

A few awkward texts and half an hour later, Louis’s on her way to Harry’s _house,_ Leanne’s on her way back to hers after a series of supportive, bone-crushing hugs, and Harry’s lying in bed in her PJs with _both_ ice cream cartons, crying and fucking panicking. 

This is a bad idea, she’s pretty sure. She’s too anxious to get out of bed and get into some real clothes, and she mortifyingly put Louis’s _shirt_ back on after she showered yesterday like some sort of tragic widow _,_ and Louis’s on her way here to break her heart and push her away forever, and she’s not even going to look _cute_ while her heart is destroyed. She wishes she could somehow muster up some glamour and embody the Dolly Parton song “Why’d You Come in Here Lookin’ Like That?” but instead, it’ll be miracle if she gets the ice cream to the freezer and manages to brush her _teeth_ before Louis arrives. The bar is set very, very low right now. 

She decides that a knock on the door will be too nerve-wracking, and it’s another few hours before her mom comes home from work, meaning there won’t be any prying questions about smoking if she sneaks out to the front yard for a bit, so that’s what she does. Hastily changes her shirt, stuffs her dirty hair up into a beanie, and lets herself out into the crisp dusk darkness. If Louis makes her cry or fall to her knees and beg or something else awful, she doesn't want it to happen in her room. She doesn’t want Miley to see it, to have the embarrassment immortalized in her vapid stare forevermore. 

It’s a little easier to breathe outside. It smells like the suburbs, mowed grass and wet cement and other people cooking dinner, one hundred boring lives converging on this single street, all of them wrapped up in their own petty mishaps and mundane problems. A single girl’s existential heartbreak might as well get buried in the fertilized flower boxes or doused to nothingness by the sprinklers. She feels so, _so_ fucking alone and invisible as she sits there on the porch steps, waiting, that when Louis’s car rolls up, music playing quietly enough that it’s unrecognizable, Harry _almost_ feels relieved. 

Then she sees Louis and stops feeling anything but the ugly cocktail of pain and longing once the initial pang of anxiety wears off. 

She’s wearing the denim jacket she lent Harry on Friday night, and even _now_ Harry can remember the smell of it, the weight of it on her shoulders. Louis stands by her car a moment like she’s psyching herself out, and Harry half-wonders if she’s going to leave before coming to talk to her, but then Louis takes an audible breath in, locks the car, and starts to walk over. 

It’s a moment before she spots Harry sitting on the steps, and when she looks up, something vulnerable washes over her face as she jogs across the lawn, closing the distance between them, knees looking very white through the rips in her black skinny jeans, like flashes of snow in the darkness. “Hi,” she says quietly as she approaches the steps, panting slightly. 

Harry blinks, swallowing thickly. “Hi,” she echoes, staring, not sure if she should invite her to sit or just wait to see what she plans to do, wondering if she has it in herself to pretend to be cold, nonchalant, uncaring when she’s anything _but._ Louis just stands and shifts her weight uneasily, hands in her jacket pockets, eyes everywhere but on Harry. It’s weird, seeing her so nervous. Harry didn’t fully realize this, but she half-expected _Louis_ to be the cold one, even though her texts were so apologetic. It’s easier to be mad and self-righteous when she imagines some harder and steelier version of Louis instead of _this_ girl: shorter than her, sweating at her temples, eyes red-rimmed and swollen, just like Harry’s. “You’re okay,” Louis observes. “I was worried.” 

“You said,” Harry mumbles, swallowing thickly, emboldened by this revelation that maybe, _somehow,_ they’re the same. That revealing things and showing your interior to people does not drive a chasm between you but bridges gaps. Mends. She imagines the neat stitches that she sewed into her own uniform skirt as she took an inch up off the bottom in secret to show off her legs and takes a deep breath. “Why did you kiss me if you have a girlfriend” 

Louis stares and stares some more. Then she cocks her head and makes a face, brow furrowed, eyes narrowed and blue and flashing curiously. “Wait... _what_?” 

“Why did you kiss me?” Harry repeats, heart beginning to pound, lodging itself so far up her throat that she feels like she’s going to choke. It was hard _enough_ to force it out the first time, so this time it cracks a bit, wobbles at the end. She tries to swallow her tears, tilting her jaw up to the starless night sky above them instead of looking at Louis and her beautiful fucking face. “I don’t need any big, formal apology, I mean, I get that this doesn't mean anything to you. I just...I wanna know why you did it.” 

“Harry,” Louis says evenly. “I don’t have a girlfriend, I don’t know who _told_ you that, but—”

“Louis! No one needed to tell me, I _saw_ you guys, I _met_ Lauren! You made it very clear—”

“Wait, wait, wait, wait, you think _Lauren_ is my girlfriend?!” Louis asks incredulously, hands flying to her hair to worry it, mess it up with nervous hands before she stops panting. “Fuck, okay, this is _not_ the conversation I imagined having, I didn’t prepare for this, so I’m, like...m’freaking out.” 

“Did you think I didn’t _know?”_ Harry asks, even though there’s something coming to life inside of her, a dangerous combination of guarded hope and tentative doubt and raw confusion. Could she have been _wrong_ somehow? But then fragments of the night come flashing back to her, fierce and painful like sucker punches to the solar plexus. “You guys _kissed_ in front of me!” she yells, gesturing emphatically, tears leaking down her face as she blinks. “And, yeah, okay, I’m not _experienced_ with this shit, Louis, but I’m not _stupid..._ I’m not naive.I’m not _that_ much younger than you, either.” 

Louis holds her hands out, approaching Harry with careful steps. Her eyes are so wide and blue, and Harry _doesn’t_ want to look into them, but they pull her in like she’s a hooked fish, and their gazes lock, fierce and electric. “Can I sit down next to you?” 

“Fine,” Harry grinds out, scooting a few feet over on the steps, giving Louis space even though all she wants to do is throw herself into her arms and beg her to tell her she was wrong about everything. 

“Lauren is _not_ my girlfriend, she has _never_ been my girlfriend. We kissed because we’re just...I don’t know, I kiss my friends sometimes! Not my friends from St. Catherine’s because people are weird about that stuff there, and even if they aren’t _Catholic_ Catholic, there’s always…I don’t know, it’s just not the same,” she explains, twisting her hands together in this way that Harry finds impossibly mesmerizing. She watches, trying hard to compute even though her stomach is busy tying itself in violent, resistant knots. 

“She’s not...you aren’t dating?” Harry repeats, even though the words aren’t making any sense. Someone power-walks past the house, a lady wearing pink yoga pants and walking a German shepherd, tags jingling as it trots down the sidewalk. Harry and Louis pause to watch, and during their reprieve, Harry notices that her body is moving in time with her heart, which is pounding so fucking hard that her ribs feel like they’ll crack. “You never dated?” she adds once the woman and her dog are gone, shifting her gaze to Louis, if only for a moment. 

Her face is blanched, eyes sincere. “Never. I mean, maybe we made out at parties, like, twice back in sophomore year? But not _ever_ seriously. She’s always just been a friend,” she explains. 

“I…okay,” Harry whispers, cheeks sticky, throat tight. 

She must not sound convinced because Louis makes a defeated sound in her throat and says, “You don’t believe me.” 

“I...I don’t know, Lou, I’m trying to, but it’s hard. You guys just seemed so—”

“Look, I invited Lauren last night because she’s my wingwoman,” Louis blurts. “I wanted her opinion on whether or not you seemed gay or into me or anything like that, and maybe that’s why we seemed extra close or…I dunno, _conspiratorial._ But please, please, _please_ hear me out when I say that we've never been like that. I mean, Lauren already has a girlfriend! Her name’s Lucy, a freshman at USC. I could introduce you.” 

“I don’t need to be introduced to Lauren’s girlfriend,” Harry snaps, not yet _daring_ to let herself feel relief, still choosing to sink under the weight that’s settled over her heart because she isn’t sure that she can take being jerked around by her own insecurities for one more second. She tries to stay neutral, a blank slate, just taking things as they are without destroying herself over them. “You…you wanted her opinion of me?” 

“Yes,” Louis says staring at the concrete between her Vans, face unreadable. 

“You couldn't tell that I was gay?” she asks, thinking back to _Leanne,_ of all people, _suspecting_ somehow. Like it’s emblazoned across her chest alongside that A. 

“Well, no, I could tell, but I didn't know if _you_ knew,” Louis clarifies, shrugging. “Which was why I wanted Lauren’s opinion…I guess I needed someone to tell me whether I was going to make a fucking fool of myself with you, and I did anyway, somehow.” 

“Louis,” Harry says, still trying _so fucking hard_ not to get ahead of herself. “Do you, like…have a crush on me?” 

Louis rolls her eyes self-deprecatingly. “Yeah...to put it mildly.” 

Harry doesn't know what to say. She just sits there, waiting for the punchline, for reality to catch up to her and knock her out with an icy, bitter fist. Louis _can’t_ have a crush on her, this _can’t_ be as simple as her _not_ having a girlfriend and kissing Harry simply because she _liked_ her. _Likes_ her, currently. It’s just…that sort of thing doesn't happen, not to her. “Really?” she asks, raising an eyebrow. 

“God, why do you sound so skeptical?” Louis fires right back. “I thought for sure you _knew_ , I mean, I flirt with you _constantly_. Invite you places, sing duets with you at lunch, I…Harry, since you came to this fucking school, you’re all I think about,” she admits, voice cracking as she looks up with desperate eyes, and, _oh, god,_ her shoulders are trembling, her cheeks are wet, this _cannot_ be happening, Harry _cannot_ be the girl on the back of Louis’s imaginary motorcycle, she cannot be making Louis _cry_. She’s not good enough for this, she does not deserve to be cried over. 

“Oh, no, god, please, no,” she murmurs, scooting closer to Louis, laying a tentative hand on her arm, wishing she felt enough like this was reality to do _more_. Hook her arms around Louis’s neck, bring her closer by the denim collar of her jacket, kiss her trembling lips. “If you like me, then I don’t understand what’s going _on._ Why we’re both crying, why you apologized for kissing me, when I wanted it, like, so badly.” 

Louis shakes her head, face twisted in incredulity, cheeks red, eyes pupil-black. “Because you’re sixteen and don’t know _what_ you want!” she hisses, as if she knows what Harry’s been thinking this whole time, as if she has _any fucking idea._ Before Harry can interject and chant, _it’s you, it’s you, it’s you, you absolute idiot, this whole time it’s been nothing but you, any way I can have you,_ Louis’s talking again, voice muffled from her hands. “I’ve helped too many girls figure out their sexualities and gotten hurt in the process. And I’ve sure as hell fucked over and hurt girls by not being the mentor they needed. I don’t wanna be hurt again, and more than fucking _anything_ in this _universe,_ Harry, I don’t wanna hurt you. That’s the last thing I want to do, I like you way, way too much. So, it’s...I acted irresponsibly, and it’s better if we’re just friends,” she spills out, each word sounding thicker and messier and more unintelligible than the last as they come through the filter of tears. 

Seeing Louis cry undoes something in Harry, untwists a wadded up ball of foil she’s been hiding her heart in, like leftovers in the fridge. She doesn’t _want_ to hide herself from Louis anymore, though, she doesn’t _want_ to pretend that she's not a mess of feeling, that this thing isn't gutting her. “Hey,” she croaks, reaching out and grabbing Louis’s wrist. “It’s not better, and it’s not because I _can’t_ be friends with you, it’s that I can’t be _only_ friends...ever since I first _saw_ you, I’ve wanted more than that! I’m not confused, I’m not having some sexuality crisis like those other girls,” she explains desperately, grip tightening with each successive confession. Harry takes a deep breath, and before she can let the terror of vulnerability overtake her, she adds, “The truth is that I’m in love with you...I have been for ages.” Louis’s eyes flash, growing wet and shiny as her arm flinches under Harry’s touch, but Harry _stays,_ squeezes tighter, thinks, _I’m not going to let you go._

_“_ You…what?” Louis breathes. 

_“_ I’m sorry if that’s weird,” Harry mumbles, shutting her eyes as she swallows bravely, trying hard not to care about her own dirty hair, her sloppy clothes, all the things that pale in comparison to the shiny red of Lauren’s Subaru. “Louis, m’not gonna let you push me away because you think you’re, like, ruining me or pressuring me or something. If you push me away, do it because I’m too much or too clingy or want to kiss you in front of your parents, or I get stupidly jealous of all the other girls you touch, but not because you think I don’t want you...you’re, like, _all_ I want.” 

Louis’s whole face is tear-sticky by the time Harry finishes, and Harry’s shaking, hands sweat-slick, stomach in knots as they just stare at each other for a moment, the moon watching, the sprinklers _tick-ticking_ two yards away like a metronome. “Harry?” Louis asks after an eternity, wiping her eyes on her sleeve, sniffling. “Can I kiss you again?” 

Harry tugs her in by her wrist and crushes their mouths together without answering. 

Louis tastes like salt and fear and smoke, and, _god,_ god, it’s happening again, but this time, kissing back feels like reassurance instead of guilt. It’s so much sweeter and rougher and more wonderful than Harry has breath for, so she shudders away, stomach dropping, heart fluttering. “Do you believe me?” she asks, cupping Louis’s teary face, thumbing at the sharp, perfect angle of her cheekbones. She wants to memorize this, wants to freeze this moment forever and live in the space mapped out in the constellation of Louis’s three perfect freckles. 

“Yes, _yes_...m’trying to,” Louis admits, eyes closed, stealing soft, lingering kisses between words as her lashes flutter against her cheek, golden in the porch light. “But I didn’t _know_ that, I mean,I couldn’t…you gotta understand, Harry, no one acts like this. Like, no one _knows_ the way that you’re saying you know, they always freak out, they alway leave. I thought _you_ were freaking out, Friday night, and that's why I felt so fucking awful about kissing you in the morning.” 

“I thought you had a _girlfriend,_ Lou,” Harry reminds her, a frantic, elated giggle bubbling up and huffing out across Louis’s soft, pretty lips. She leans in and kisses them again before adding, “It wasn’t some gay crisis, but if you don’t have a girlfriend, m’not scared of this, of anything. I just wanna kiss you.” 

And Louis, with tears on her cheeks, Louis, who deserves to be loved fearlessly, shakes her head and pitches forward and kisses her back, and back again, while moths crowd around the naked bulb by the door and a trickle of water from the neighbor’s yard chases down the sidewalk past them, forgotten. 

—-

Harry forgets where she is, _who_ she is, she simply dissolves into Louis, the entirety of her conscious mind erased by the soft, hot slide of her lips, the muted tremble of her hands. The heartbeat staccato of her name endlessly thudding in Harry’s chest, _Louis, Louis, Lou, Lou, Lou,_ sending a spark of heat into her gut every time, flipping her stomach, sending waves of fever coursing over her like a relentless tide _._

She can’t _believe_ this. Can’t believe that _Louis_ is kissing her, touching her, sifting her fingers tenderly through her hair like it’s something she’s been dreaming of. Sucking on her tongue, nipping her bottom lip, _hungry_ like she wants more, all of it positively _heartstopping_ in how _hot_ it is, how thrilling. The fact that it’s happening at all is so astounding to Harry that she doesn't even feel the full power of her elation until they part to breathe and Louis thumbs over her dimple, their foreheads pressed flush and breath ghosting over each other’s lips intimately, tacitly shared secrets. “God,” Louis sighs, grinning, eyes crinkled up at the sides. “You’re smiling...I love seeing you smile...broke my heart to see you so sad yesterday morning, all because of me,” she whispers gently, cupping Harry’s face with warm palms, as if she's feeling her out, making sure that she’s real. 

Something about this moment is achingly raw, and it _hits_ Harry, finally. That Louis wants her back. That Louis is _kissing_ her breathless, like she’s afraid to stop, like _she’s_ the one worried that Harry might disappear into a wisp of smoke if she doesn't keep her here, under her hands, between her fingers. “Oh, my god,” Harry whimpers, shivering as she drops her forehead down to Louis’s shoulder, presses her lips to her neck. “It wasn’t all because of you, it was because of _me..._ because I’m an idiot. I can’t believe that I almost ruined the thing I want most because I just _assumed_ shit instead of asking. Instead of _talking_ to you,” she clarifies, digging her fingertips into Louis’s shoulders, loving the give of skin over the solidity of her. “I was _so_ convinced that you could never like someone like me.” 

Louis lets out a staggered, shaky sigh, sneaking a hand further up inside Harry’s beanie, drawing her closer. It’s getting colder, so they’re shivering out here on the steps, Harry can see her breath as she exhales, but it doesn't matter because Louis’s _so,_ so warm, and she’s allowed to lean into that. “Someone like you…hmmmm, someone goofy and funny and so fucking gorgeous that it hurts to look at her? Shocking, really, for me to fall for a girl like that,” Louis jokes, lips at her temple. “I can’t find a single thing I _wouldn’t_ like about you, Harry. ” 

Harry shivers, inhaling shakily. “I just...I’ve been so sure that I was too…I dunno, m’not pretty the way that Lauren and, like, Perrie are pretty. And I’m awkward.” 

Louis shrugs, like she’s amused that this is all Harry can come up with, these pointless comparisons. “I guess I like awkward, then. I’ve thought you were _so_ cute ever since we met on the first day of school, I wanted you to join theater so badly, and I’ve wanted, god...Harry, I’ve wanted to kiss you so much that it keeps me up at night. You have the most beautiful mouth,” Louis marvels, thumbing over her lower lip, the movement careful and reverent. Harry’s heart stops. “It’s crazy to me that you didn’t _notice.”_

_“_ It’s crazy to _me_ that you needed a _wingwoman_ to confirm I was into _you,”_ Harry teases, kissing the pad of her thumb, chest a mess of butterflies at the way Louis grins as she does it. “I feel like _every_ girl is into you...every gay girl, obviously, but even, like, the straight ones, too. You’re the sort of girl who makes everyone question their sexuality. Way out of my league.” 

Louis looks down, eyes darkening a bit, mouth turning into a troubled line that Harry leans in to kiss. “I’m not out of your league,” she insists, taking Harry’s hands in her own, interlacing their fingers. “And it’s actually, like…not always a good thing? Being the sort of girl that straight girls notice or flirt or experiment with, I mean. I feel like part of why I wasn't sure about you was because I’m paranoid, I guess. People use girls like me to figure their shit out, so I never trust that anyone actually _wants_ me, like, for real. Wants to stay,” she explains, looking away and into the night, broken open in this way that makes Harry feel breathless and moved. As if Louis’s trusting her with something incredibly fragile. 

She squeezes her hands gently, loving how they’re stronger but smaller than hers, how perfectly they fit together. “I want you, and I want to stay,” she vows very seriously, pressing their palms together and hoping that Louis can _feel_ it, the certainty with which she means every word. 

Louis’s eyes get wet and dark as she blinks, squeezing Harry back. They sit there together for a long time, hands locked up, foreheads pressed together, sharing breath while the world carries on around them, continuing as if the sky hasn’t fallen, as if nothing has changed. _Everything_ feels different for Harry, though. Like her heart has opened up, and her future lies ahead of her, smooth water and a smoother stone, perfect for skipping. Like she’s finally stepped into her body after years of floating above it, wishing she were the sort of girl who could kiss other girls. “Thank you,” Louis murmurs eventually, lips ghosting against Harry’s. “For wanting me.” 

It’s hard to imagine someone as golden as Louis doubting that she’s worth being truly and deeply desired, but Harry wonders if this is just the condition of loving girls: seeing nothing but their glory, the sunshine reflecting off the sea so brightly that it blinds you to the ways in which _you_ might be glorious, too. Loving the same things in a girl that you hate in yourself.

It’s weird to think about, Louis loving her awkward sense of humor, her long legs, and her giant mouth, which has always seemed too big for her face. But here she is, loving Louis’s crooked smile, the roll at her waist when she twists, the hair on her legs shining auburn under the porch light where her jeans have ridden up to expose her ankles. “It’s getting late, and it’s a school night,” Louis whispers, rubbing her fingertips over Harry’s wrist, feeling out her pulse. “But I don't want to go.” 

“I don’t want you to go,” Harry whispers back, tightening her grip, pressing closer to Louis.

“Wish I could sleep over and take you to school in the morning...cause a whole big scandal in the senior parking lot,” Louis grins, pitching forward and kissing Harry hard, sweeping her lips with her tongue, making her dizzy. 

“M’afraid if I go to sleep tonight, I’ll wake up tomorrow and realize that I dreamt this,” Harry admits as they pull apart wetly. 

“It’s real,” Louis promises, thumbing over the tail of her eye. “Walk me to my car? I have something for you,” she says sheepishly, standing on unsteady legs and hauling Harry to her feet after her. 

Walking is surprisingly difficult; Harry’s knees are wobbly, and her whole body is whirring with excitement and disbelief and joy and overwhelm. They lean their shoulders together as they walk side by side, holding hands in this way that feels so _right,_ so easy. Once they get to the car, she reluctantly lets go so that Louis can unlock it and rummage around in the back seat. She emerges with her class ring, a silver band with a flattened bit at the top bearing the St. Catherine’s seal. “My mom made me get this, and I never wear it, but look,” she says, holding it up and pointing to the engraved inside. “It has my name and graduating year. I know rings are, like, weird and serious, and you shouldn’t feel pressured to wear it, but, like, if you want a reminder that m’crazy about you, you can have it,” she blushes, fiddling with it nervously. 

Harry’s heart is clenching so powerfully that she can hardly breathe, so she sucks in air desperately, cheeks aching from the force of her smile. “Of course I want it,” she manages to get out, taking it gently, rubbing her finger over the delicate engraving. “I...thanks Louis,” she sniffles, choking up before she hugs her fiercely, arms around her neck, their chests pressed together. “Thank you so much.” 

Louis cups her face and kisses her hard. “Oh, god, m’so glad you’re not freaked out,” she sighs as they part. “You don’t...I don’t expect you to, like, come out or anything, you know. We can pretend we’re just friends, at school...you don’t have to wear this publicly or anything, I don’t mind if we sorta keep it a secret.” 

Harry shakes her head, steals another kiss, swaying with how dizzy it makes her to taste Louis’s breath. “I don't care who knows or who sees it,” she tells her, heart pounding. “I sorta want everyone to know.” 

“ _God,”_ Louis says, clutching at her shoulders, nosing down to her neck and kissing her there, right over her pulse. It makes Harry shiver, her stomach leaping up before plummeting, like she’s on a roller coaster. “Seriously, where did you come from? How are you so—”

“What, so obsessed with you?” Harry asks, staring up at the sky where there would be stars if they weren’t in the suburbs. It doesn’t _matter,_ though, there are stars in her eyes, erupting like static. 

“No,” Louis says, breath hot against her jaw as she mouths back up to her lips. “So brave.” 

Harry doesn't get to answer because they’re lost to kissing yet again. It’s another two or three attempts to peel apart and away before Harry _finally_ lets Louis go, and even then, it’s only because she gets a text from her mom saying that she’s on her way back home. Their goodbye is both too long and not long enough, and watching Louis drive away feels like pulling a bandaid off tender skin, initially and briefly painful, leaving a dull ache in its place. 

But as Harry slips Louis’s class ring onto her pinky and watches it glint in the streetlight as she walks back to her porch, all she can feel is a wild, magical sort of rising, that perfect and perfectly smooth rock skip-skipping out across a glassy pool, spreading ripples, hurling endlessly out from her. A disrupted surface but one of perfect order, a path pointing her directly to where she wants to be. 

 

 


End file.
